A Wrench to the Heart
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: It's a few decades after the wars. Heero's been missing. Duo's looking for him, but he's also running a group home for kids and dealing with his own mental health issues. It's an odd slice of life and adventure story with a strong love story element.
1. Chapter 1

A Wrench to the Heart 1/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Notes: Not a Santa Clarita story. It's 1x2x1, eventually.

Warnings: Mention of drug abuse by Duo, by ocs, oc death, violence, criminal activity, a messed up Heero, foul language, probably some smoking, drinking, sex, various other questionable behaviors. It wasn't beta'ed. I wrote it just for my own mental health. I hope some of you all might enjoy it too.

The truck was old. It had been old before the first US rocket breached the blue and flirted with the stars. It was huge with rounded and seafoam green with huge round headlights and enough chrome to dip a gundam in. The white on the original tires had been broader than his handspan, and the material on the tires was so old he had to send it out to have it sourced. It turned out to be made of some kind of plant blood called rubber - like real rubber. He'd mocked up some tires of a nice clean synthetic that looked like the originals. Duo figured his truck was from around 1992 - mostly because he found a love letter in the glove box with a date stamp on the envelope for that time. In any case, it was old. Like not quite Ancient Rome old, but still pretty old.

Duo rose up on his toes, reaching deeper into the engine block. Now the engine block wasn't even remotely classic and might well have been in breach of patents and interplanetary law, but it was a work of love and he was pretty sure it was gonna break the sound barrier when he opened it up.

He himself looked too young to be who he was. At forty-five his face was lineless, his hair a dark chocolate, and he looked like he looked a couple years after the wars. His eyes were sharp violet, squinting at the plasma passage he was trying connect to the generator, long fingers reaching around other cables to push the connector into the right place. It was taking all his focus.

A small hand took a handful of his gray coveralls and tugged.

Eyes wide, his head came up right into the huge hood of the ancient truck. One eye twitched.

"Daddy! I'm not sick no more!"

Duo reached up to rub his head as he squatted down to be on her eye level. "'Sat so," he asked. His other hand reached out to touch the back of his hand to her forehead. She had dark curls and dark eyes, caramel skin and a smile full of baby teeth.

"Yups. I bes fine now. I wanna play My Little Ponies! I'ma gonna be Rainbow Dash."

Duo pushed at the back of his head, feeling the lump forming, the trickle of blood. "I'm glad you're feeling better. There's some math and English modules you need to work through, Julia."

"Nooooaaaaaooo!" She said, big brown eyes wide. "I wanna play ponies!"

"One math lesson and one English lesson and then I'll unlock one level of Ponies. How's that?" Duo smiled crookedly, wiggling his eyebrows.

She eyed him, her rosy lips all drawn together as she evaluated his will. "One math."

Violet eyes rolled. She patted her hand on his knee. "DADDY, Please! I wanna play ponies!"

"Okay," he said, picking her up as he stood. She snuggled close, her slightly snotty nose rubbing against his coveralls as her hand reached behind him to grab at his coverall covered braid. "How about one level of Ponies and then one math and one English and then you can play Ponies until dinner."

"Okay," she said, head heavy on his shoulder, her thumb in her mouth. Voice muffled around her thumb, "I want macaronis and cheeeses."

"Can do," he said, as he set her down on the couch. She fell over sideways, thumb still in her mouth. He pulled the fluffy blue afghan up over her, ruffled her hair, then picked up her tablet, keyed in the security code that would let her play a level of her game and handed her the tablet.

She moaned, eyeing, clearly struggling with if she should take her thumb out of her mouth to reach out and get it or maybe he'd just hold it for her.

"I have to go start dinner, Julia."

She sighed, rolled over on her belly and he tucked the tablet where she could reach it.

His house was pretty big, with ten bedrooms, but he lived with the twelve foster kids and his three adopted kids, and more barn cats then he wanted to count. He also had an assistant who went to college during the day, but helped out for room and board. She wasn't much good at somethings but she was damn fine at making great amounts of food that he could just slide into the warmer.

The kitchen was a huge affair with a nice polished table along the lines of a picnic table. There was a three method sink and a walk-in cooler in place of a fridge. There was also a really good first aide kit on the wall by the door that lead to the upstairs part of the house. He keyed in his personal code and it gave him access to a broader variety of medical tools. While it was opening, the AI in the kit scanned him and generated a empathy expressing face that looked a lot like Sally Wu. "Maxwell. Your white blood cell count is high. You need another treatment. You are also bleeding from a small wound on your scalp. You have to do your best to not take damage until your treatments are complete. Do I have permission to raise my nag level?"

"Yeah, fuck no. I'm fully away of my condition. Give me a knitter for the scalp wound and take your nag level down two notches."

A small tube of medication appeared in the materization port. His fingers shook as he picked up and opened the tip with his thumbnail. As he dribbled it on the cut on his scalp, the AI had shifted representations and now looked like Heero Yuy. Heero smiled a sweet and adoring smile that no Heero Yuy ever had smiled. "Good job, Duo. I'm so glad to see you taking such good care of yourself."

"Thanks, Heero. How ya comin on that new body o'yours?"

"I'm sorry Duo. I can't print myself a new body. I'm not the real Heero Yuy. Do you need me to make you a therapy appointment. It has been two years and four months since your last appointment with Dr. Graves."

"Nope. Up your nag rate by two notches. Thanks."

Sally glared at him. "You are definitely in need of more medical care than I can give you as a first aid box, Maxwell. You need to restore my connection to the greater net so I can provide you with greater care!"

Duo wrinkled his nose, tossed the empty tube into the recycle shoot. "Like the time you called the EMTs on me because I was drunk? No. Thank. You."

"You were making credible threats of self harm."

"Yeah, well, I was drunk off my ass, Sally." Duo winked, keyed in the code that would shut the box down. It folded in on itself until it looked like a nondescript little beige box on the wall.

Next he went about getting the long pans of dinner out of the walk-in and into the ovens. It turned out dinner was mac and cheese and baked chicken. Not his favorite, but he wasn't sure had the energy or the will to make himself anything else.

After the pans were into the oven, he went into the restroom by the kitchen, stripped out of his coveralls and stared at himself for a moment. If he stared long enough, he wondered if he'd succeed in making Heero's ghost appear behind him this time. Slightly too slender fingers touched the mirror and he whispered, "Bloody Heero, Bloody Heero, I dare you to fuckin' show."

It didn't really rhyme and it wasn't the way it had been in the movie and it was completely stupid, but it still made him feel a tiny spike of happiness. If anyone was going to be a vengeful ghost, it wouldn't be fuckin' Heero Yuy.

He hung his coveralls up and made back into the kitchen in time for the buzzer on the oven letting him know that the oven was heated enough to put the food in, though he'd already put the food in so he wasn't real concerned.

"DAAADDDD! I need tissues!" Julia hollered.

He rubbed his temple, head bowed for a moment. He hadn't been a religious man in a goodly while, but there were times he missed the comfort of it. Somehow, when Heero stopped being alive, it just wasn't possible to believe in anything else.

Out of the corner of his eye though, out the window by the sinks, out into the grassy yard, right in front of the big wooden swing set, he saw a scraggly figure with tangled purple hair and a coat like it was January on a nice April day. Duo jaw went steely. The whisper of Shinigami, who had long lain quiet and waiting in Duo's non-existent soul, curled up hungry and attentive, "Dangerous... Kill her."

Duo wanted a shot of whiskey about as badly as he'd ever wanted such a thing. Instead, he splashed some water on his face, scrubbed with the kitchen towel, and shouted. "I'm going in the yard. Julia - go to your room. Shut the door. Do not come out for any reason. Now."

"Yes, Daddy," she said, stomping as she went up the stairs, just so he'd know she was unhappy about it.

After he heard her door closed, without taking his eyes off the vagabond looking girl in the yard, he pulled a jar of peanut butter out of the cabinet. She was out of his sight for the time it took him to make it to the back door and he was relieved to see her standing in the same place.

There is something in the heart of a parent, even if not biological, just adopted or long term foster, that when it cracks, there's nothing that feels like it will ever fully plaster over. She was at most eighteen or nineteen. With kids like he'd been, born in the aftermath of the wars, that it just wasn't always possible to now the real age. Her hair was matted, spotted with purple and green dye that was likely the leftovers of a party more than intent, but it reminded him of bruising. Her shoes didn't match, but at least they looked like they fit well enough. He was glad he couldn't see her arms.

After Heero had gone, he'd gone through a couple months of drug use, but he didn't really understand the appeal and he didn't approve and standing a couple feet from the first foster kid he'd ever taken in, he wasn't sure if he should hate himself for not doing a better job or hate drugs or hate ... god, except there wasn't any god and his nose wrinkled for a moment and he thought about hating Heero.

Maybe if Heero hadn't died and they'd gotten together, together they could have done a better job. Heero had always been better at fucking everything so that made sense. It was all Heero's fault after all.

His chest literally hurt as he stood there next to her and finally he broke shoved the jar of peanut butter in her direction. "You need to eat more."

She liked dry, parchment pale lips. "I want to get clean."

"Go to the Center. I'm an engineer, not a doctor and I sure as fuck don't do rehab, Tyla."

"I'm in trouble."

"Of course you are," he said shoving the peanut butter at her as if that would everything. Thicken the blood right up. Yes, yes it would.

"They want you to race. If you don't race, they'll kill me." There wasn't much emotion in her face. It was like age was a snake and it was swallowing her whole, creativity, spark, dreams, cognition, all fading away well before they should.

He dropped the jar of peanut butter on the grass. "Go to the Center. They can't get you in the Center and once you're clean, you can transfer to a different colony, start a new life. You don't have to let them bully you."

There it was, some spark of emotion, but was dark, angry. Whatever human process had become Shinigami in him, had become something else in her. "I'll go to the Center if you race."

"Do you promise," he said, remembering when she had been so small, so sweet, remembered reading her bedtime stories.

"Sure. Yeah. You promise to race? And not get hurt?" The memories of bedtime stories showed in her pale lined face. "I don't want you to get hurt. Are sick?"

"Yeah, I promise," he said, comforting himself that she'd asked so many questions that it was legitimately confusing what he was promising.

From the back steps, Charlotte, his current assistant called, "Duo? Everything okay? Dinner's in the oven, right?"

He looked over his shoulder, but only for a very brief moment, "Yeah, Charlie, everything's great. Dinner's in the oven. I'm gonna go down to the Center. Might be late. Tell the kids I'll tuck'em in when I get home."

"Okay," she said, unsure of the situation.

"Everyone stays inside tonight," Duo said firmly, wishing he'd grabbed a coat before he went outside. "No exceptions. Lock all the doors. Use the first aid kit to turn on the extra security."

"Yes, Sir," she said, and then turned tail and ran back into the house.

"Overkill much? Yer crazy," Tyla accused.

Shinigami boiled under skin. It made his gums itch. He leaned closer to her, smelling the novo on her skin, lingering in her breath, her hair, on her clothes. His smile was more of a grimace, teeth bared, "At least I'm alive and have a house to secure."

She returned his sneer, her expression very similar to his, just like she was actually his kid, "Yeah? Well, at least I don't drink my ass to sleep each night cryin over some heartless fucker I couldn't even tell I wanted to fuck when he was alive."

Shinigami coiled and writhed in him, begging for blood. Duo took a step back, rubbed his eye socket, his jaw, wished he didn't feel hollow. If it wasn't for his kids, there wouldn't be any point,and looking at Tyla, he wasn't real sure there was a point, even with them. "Go around front. I'll get a car."

"You race tonight."

Part of him wanted to, to race, to run, to feel machine roar under him, to drop into space, and dance around the outside of the colony like some manic metal firefly. He hadn't stopped racing because he lost or because he didn't like it. Just like novo, he liked it fuck tons. He stopped because he couldn't take good care of his kids and race, or jack up on novo. It was one or the other.

"Sure," he said and in that moment, he wasn't real sure he wasn't going to go through with it. Maybe just one more go, one more race, small jack up. Jacking up would knock back the pain, make him stronger. If he was going to race, he'd have to jack up a little. "Meet me in front, Tyla."

A few minutes later, he pulled up out of the underground garage in a black late model Mustang. It was completely electric. The colonies did not allow fossil fuels and Duo was totally behind that. He really hated getting called in for air filter cleaning. His car roared though, which was totally a noise violation, but there weren't that many people in his area of the colony. Those that were tended to be pretty close knit. It was Shinigami under his skin though that revved the engine again, roaring loud enough that it shook the windows of his house and he probably was going to get a nasty email about sound pollution from the colony authorities.

Tyla jumped into the passenger seat.

Duo flicked on the aircycler, desperate to get the stench of novo out of his mind.

"Yer a fuckin' jacker," Tyla accused.

"I ain't the one gonna be sleepin in the Center. Put yer seatbelt on," Duo snapped, refusing to move the car until she did.

She finally sat up, pulled the safety harness on. Her nose wrinkled and he could just hear her telling him he wasn't real father.

He wanted to snap that he was as good as she was going to get and it sucked to be her, but didn't. It was really hard not to see her when she was eight, lost and half feral from living on the streets and maybe to see himself in her. "I'd let you come home, but I've got other kids now too, you know. Some of them have never... well, been on the streets or anything."

"Innocent little angels," she snapped. "Fuck'em."

"Well, I like to keep the house a safe place. It needs to stay safe. I didn't make your choices for you, Tyla. I've helped you all I can."

"Yeah," she said, not convinced. "Yer helpin me tonight though."

"Yeah," he said, eyes on the road.

It took the nearly an hour to get to the Center. By the time they got there, Duo thought the hard part of his night was about over. He was wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

A Wrench to the Heart 2/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Warnings: Same as yesterday, drugs, violence, homicidal ideation, mental illness, sci fi weirdness, eventual 1x2x1

Chapter Two

The Center looked like a nice Victorian house, blue with white trim, green grass, and what looked like actual butterflies dancing in the yard. Duo had been inside though. Inside looked nice as well. The four floors below with enough inpatient space to treat 125 guests though and what kind of treatment withdrawals caused gave him a distaste for fucking butterflies.

As he put the car in park, sentimentality made his heart hurt and he turned to look at Tyla. She had his last name because she hadn't had her own when she'd come to him. Hands still on the wheel, eyes on her, it was so easy to see the little girl she'd been. "Hey. I'm sorry. I can be an asshole. I'm not always right in the head. You're my kid. You can always come home. I'll always help. You gotta get clean, Ty. Novo is shit. It'll eat yer life, baby."

Whatever sharpness was on her tongue melted. She slumped down into the chair. "I ain't really goin in there."

"You think I can't throw you over mah shoulder an'carry yer ass in?" Duo challenged, faced twisted up in irritation.

"I fuck'in doubt it," she said. "Yer sick. We both know it. You not wantin to go through treatment ain't much different than me not wantin ta go through withdrawls, now is it? If you race, you'll end up dead anyway. If they just kill me instead, well, then we're ahead in the long run. How come you still love me?"

"Tyla, love isn't a math problem. It's like boiling colors. There's no way to say what it does or doesn't do."

"Oh you so have a brain tumor. That made no fuckin sense, Dad. When I die, are you gonna get all cry-y like you did over your boyfriend?"

The only good think about Shinigami was that he didn't deal with stuff like this. There wasn't any credible physical threat, so Shini might as well have been out on the back porch of Duo's mind smoking a cigarette watching the clouds stroll by. Duo just sat there in the car, looking up at the fake clouds for a moment, wishing he still smoked. "I haven't given up yet. I think yer gonna walk into the Center and get clean. Don't you remember when you used to paint? You used to make the most beautiful things. What if you had a whole different life. You starting a family of your own, bringin yer kids over to play in the yard with your little brothers and sisters. Imagine just never going back to the interlevels. Live in the light..."

"Like that's even possible?" She leaned her seat back a little, eyes watching around them, furtive and nervous.

He wasn't sure if she were actually expecting them to be attacked or if she were just too long between hits. "It's possible. There are whole neighborhoods of new houses. Once you get clean, your citizen stipend will start again. Paint beautiful things."

She rolled on the seat. Under the puffy coat, she had to be really small, boney. He wanted to reach out to her, but he was genuinely afraid she'd bruise or flutter away like dust. "I remember," she said, distant, eyes glassy.

"What do you remember," he asked, leaning his seat back so he could lay back, which took some of the pressure off his head, easing the headache hadn't realized he had. "Tell me."

She licked those dry pale lips. "My mom. She held my head in the toilet. My chest burned. Then I remember you. Did you kill my mom?"

"No." Duo took a deep breath, silently told himself he could not have half a bottle of bourbon and a pack of smokes. "But If I'd walked in on her doing that, can't say I wouldn't have. You deserve better, Ty."

"Would you die to protect me?"

"If I had to," he said seriously, studying her.

"So that's the right thing to do? To protect the people you love?"

"We don't live in that kind of world, Tyla. I fought a nasty war so that you don't have to live in that world. The interlevels make it out to be not fair, to be this dark place. It's not true. The L2 cluster is a good place to be now. The people living in the interlevels... they're sick. They don't get it. I'm yer dad. I'd die for you if I have to. Trust me."

"Can you prove you didn't kill my mom?"

"Maybe," Duo said, sitting his seat back up. He pulled a screen up out of the dash board. One hand moved in front of the screen as the computer captured the motion of his fingers, interpreting it as a super fast speed typing. "Here, there's the police report on your mom. Syfai Yarrow. Note her time of death," Duo pointed to the screen.

Tyla sat up looking, her fingers reaching out to touch the police report images of her mom's body.

"Here. This is my stay at the Center. I was there a month before and two months after. I can't have killed your mom. You came to live with me the following year."

"You were in the center... for three months," she said as some light came back into her eyes, some deep anger and hurt melting away. "You didn't kill my mom. You got clean. You think I can too? Really? You won't let them hurt me?"

"I won't let'em hurt you," Duo promised, smiling sheepishly, afraid to let himself be hopeful. Maybe she was going to be okay and he was going to blame Heero for that too. Everything was always Heero's fault.

"You promise that you'll always be my dad, no matter what?"

Duo rolled his eyes, cheeks sucking in. "What are you? Nine? Of course I'm always going to be your dad, idiot. I'll come visit you everyday. I'll drive you home. I could use more help with the kids. You think you could live with that?"

"I can really come home?"

"Yeah, but after the Center certifies you. Okay."

She reached out and grabbed his hand. "Dase said he'd kill me if I didn't get you to agree. There's an Earther that wants to race against the best and folk say that's you. I owe him. He's gonna kill me."

Shinigami uncoiled in Duo's mind, sliding over thoughts like a dark black dragon. 'SOooooOOO. Can I kill that one? Can I pull his bones from his skin? Please?'

"If anyone's gonna die, it ain't gonna be you. I've had about all the warm and cuddly I can deal with today. I'll walk you in. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Dad."

He motioned for her to move, up, out... gotta go.

She pulled the zipper down on her big puffy coat, revealing wires, primitive explosives. Real homemade shit. "I'm sorry."

Duo stopped being in that moment, lost in stress beyond he could deal with. Shinigami flexed his fingers, his grin sharper, violet eyes darker, much more twilight like there was very little soul left. "Oh, baby, this ain't no thing," he said, voice slick and dark, clearly not Duo's voice.

"Hey, Shini. You gonna kill me," she asked, tears pooling, slipping shadowed down pale skin.

"Shut up." He keyed open a concealed compartment in the glove box. He pulled out a real old dose of novo and a small tool kit. The dose fell to the floor and he went right into the tool kit. Looking at the vest on her, he wrinkled his nose. "You didn't build this. I taught you better. Did you really think the chatbot killed your mother?"

"No. I thought you did."

Shinigami wiggled his eyebrows, winked. "I thought you knew me. Why the hell would I kill your mother?"

"Cuz... cuz of what she did to me?"

"Don't confuse me and Duo. If you break his heart again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?" He made quick work of the bomb, taking risks with both their lives, but calculated risks that were better than the alternatives. "Just imagine a world where his heart is broken and he never comes back and all you've got is me."

She wiped her cuff over her sleeve. "You'd really kill me?"

"Do I lie," Shinigami said, drawing the words out, playful and a little insane. "Out of the car. Don't run."

She swallowed hard, but stepped out of the car. Shinigami moved fast and was around her side before she closed the door. He had her by the back of the neck, around to the back, where he put the coat and the vest into the truck, locked it, and then with his hand still on the back of her neck, walked her right up to the front door of the Center.

At the door she started to struggle. He grabbed a handful of her hair. "No! I just wanna talk to Dad again, please!"

"Sorry. He can't come play right now. I'll give'im yer regards." Shinigami let go of her, motioning for her to enter the light filled doorway. One could not actually be forced into the Center. One had to enter of one's own free will. "Ya gonna go in and get right? Ya could stay with me. I'll make ya stronger." He winked, Somehow his canines seemed more pronounced, his eyes darker, more color in his cheeks.

She shook her head and slipped into the light of the Center, into what was possibly the most advanced treatment center for drug addiction. Quatre had given it as a gift to the L2 Cluster as a gift to keep Duo's then-drug-addicted-ass out of jail for an armed data breach. Duo learned everything he knew about giving lectures from Quatre.

Camelot.L2 had other very nice medical facilities, with powerful and very effective AIs. Any one of them could have completely cured Duo of both the blood infection and the tumor that was constantly trying to grow in his brain. There was no cost for medical care on Camelot which functioned as a commonwealth. The problem was that they would want to mute his memories of Heero, pointing out that ten year gone memories were hardly accurate memories anyway and he would have much less depression and a better quality of life if he muted those memories to sweet warmth. The mental health divisions of healthcare weren't likely to really approve of Shinigami either. Shinigami really did not fancy being deleted for the cause of giving Duo Maxwell a more normative experience. Every now and then, Duo let him kill someone. It worked out great.

Still, letting Duo die from lack of medical care was hardly conducive to his societally beneficial serial killer hobby. So it was time to go visit Chang Sung. The interlevels were just that. They were spaces between the inner skin and the outter skin of the colony. They also occupied spaces where expansions had been planned, but not completed. The air was dirty. The temperatures were unsteady. Every now and then solar flares would literally cook those that lived in the least shielded areas. Duo didn't understand why anyone would live in the interlevels.

Shinigami didn't understand why anyone would ever come out of them. No Law. No normative. No forgiveness. No sweet polite friperies. The strong didn't need permission. There was racing, fighting, sex of every variety. It was nothing like the sweet and beautiful inner skin Camelot with its virtual sky and charming trains.

He parked the pretty mustang in a nice safe parking garage, shoved the vest into a knapsack in the truck along with his tool kit, then went back for the novo on the floorboards. He thought about checking with Charlotte, but he was afraid if he contacted the house, he'd lose control of the body before he took care of some shit. Also from a hidden compartment in the trunk, Shinigami pulled a small disk, just about big enough to stand on.

Unlicensed gravity inversion disks were also, not surprisingly, illegal in Camelot. Shinigami nearly whistled as he half skipped up to the roof of the parking garage. A moment later, he was a shooting star aimed at the pretty blue sky and then he disappeared right into it, his presence cloaked from prying eyes and safety keepers as well.

The street was a mess of unplanned growth in carbosteel and biocrete. The shop he went into looked like something out of a western movie, part saloon, part telegraph office. The seeming wood construction was just daydreaming biocreet. Shinigami walked through the swinging doors, admired the realism of gunpowder and blood lingering in the air. A saloon dancer approached him, thick skirts swirling, even though the face had a touch of facial hair, too strong of a jaw to be female. Shinigami made a handsign and the dancer disappeared around him like a disintegrating mist.

At the top of the stairs, Chang Sung, son of Chang Wufei misted into being. "Shini. Nice to see you. You're fucking three months late. ARE you trying to die?"

"Naw, man. I just couldn't get control of the damn body. The fucker's just happy these days. It's gonna be the fuckin' death of us." Shinigami boosted himself over the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. "Any word on our other project?"

The news had covered Heero's death. There had been a huge public funeral. Neither Duo nor Shinigami had gone. Relena accused him of being in denial. Duo had not dealt well. Shinigami had hunted information. It was the only thing he liked as much as the blood of his enemies. Turns out, there wasn't any really good sources on what happened to Heero. Some sources say he was killed in a gunfight with terrorists. Other sources claim he had been on a ship that was hit by war debris that suffered a fatal decompression. There were very convincing medical records that he had died of a rapid progression of an untreatable cancer. There were too many clues for it not to have been constructed, which meant Heero might not actually be dead.

When those thoughts leaked across their barrier, Duo had thoughts of abandonment and broken heartedness. Shinigami didn't fucking love Heero Yuy, or anyone else, but he still needed to find out what had happened. In his very darkest moments, he feared that he had killed Heero after the chat bot confessed his undying love and got laughed at. It was a possible scenario.

"Actually, yes," Sung said. "I don't see why you won't let me email Duo."

"You work with me," Shinigami said, dark violet eyes threatening.

Sung, who was a beautiful and willowy creature with long fingers and black hair longer than Duo's that flowed and swirled as he walked, the tips lighting up like a swarm of fireflies, he held up his hand and arched an eyebrow at him. "Don't give me that look. You owe me your life twenty times over." He reached those slender fingers into his long brocade sleeve and pulled out a piece of folded parchment. "I have here a transcript of what is the last email sent by Heero Yuy. It was sent from the Rage ES, before its destruction. It is possible that they were attacked."

Shinigami reached for the paper and Sung pulled back, smirking, then handed it over.

Those dark violet eyes faded just a little, lightening as they read the letter.

"Duo ...

Emily Dickinson h"

"That's it," Shinigami asked, eyebrow arching. "Who the hell is this Emily chick?"

"Your education is sorely lacking. She's a poet from before sky breach. Maybe Duo knows something."

"Maybe he does," Shinigami said, rolling his eyes, "You have no idea the ravages his emotional state does to me when he gets on about Heero. I'll find Heero myself. You got my treatment ready?"

"Of course," Sung said, smiling like a happy dungeon master. "You shouldn't have waited so long. It's going to hurt."

"Good," Shinigami said. He poured himself another shot of Sung's whiskey, and then followed the devious Chinese man back up the stairs. "Make his ass sore as fuck tomorrow."

"My pleasure," Sung said. "I have revamped the treatment. You might actually get a cure this time. Or you could die. I'm not for sure."

Duo woke face down in his bed, clothes still on, braid laying over his head, trailing towards the floor, one shoe on, the other on its side by the door. He had dry mouth like he'd tried to drink one of those damn deserts on Earth. He opened his mouth, dry tongue sticking out like that was going to help at all.

Oddly, he felt better than he'd felt in ... a long time. His head didn't hurt. He felt like he could go for a run, a real run, though as he moved everything hurt. He felt like he'd hosted the running of the bulls in his veins and he still felt better than he'd felt in longer than he could remember.

"Oh my god, you're awake!" Charlotte said as she peeked in the door. "Are you okay? I wanted to call medical services, but Jake told me you do this sometimes and you didn't need medical intervention. I was so worried!"

"Ima fine," Duo said, as he rolled onto his back. "Best night's sleep in a while."

"Two nights. You slept all day yesterday. I swear to god I thought you were dead."

Duo sat up, scratched his head, then shivered. "Fuck. I'm hungry!"

"Really," Charlotte said. She'd been complaining about his lack of appetite since she took the job. "There's food. Oh and I missed class yesterday, so you need a backup plan if you're going to do this again."

"Sure, no problem," Duo said.

Then Julia was like a siren coming down the hall. "DAADDDDDDYYYYYYY!" She was in the door and onto the bed, bounced a couple times and threw herself into his lap. "Daddy's awake! Can I play ponies?"

"You do lessons?" He asked, smoothing red curls back from her face.

"Yup! I was so good so you'd wake up! Now I wanna play ponies!" She smiled angelically.

"Okay, let me get a shower and I'll come down and unlock it for you."

She bounced off the bed and ran around in a circle, then out the door.

"I'll warm up some food for you. You look better today, more color in your face."

"Hn." Duo said, mostly ignoring her as he went into his bathroom. There on the mirror, written in black lipstick was, "Emily Dickinson." The freaky thing was it was in his own handwriting. He grabbed the hand towel and scrubbed it away.

 **That I did always love**

That I did always love,  
I bring thee proof:  
That till I loved  
I did not love enough.

That I shall love alway,  
I offer thee  
That love is life,  
And life hath immortality.

This, dost thou doubt, sweet?  
Then have I  
Nothing to show  
But Calvary.

Emily Dickinson


	3. Chapter 3

A Wrench to the Heart 3/?

By Max

Disclaimer: On this one... not any great warnings. Duo's a little crazy though. :)

Chapter 3

All the rest of the kids were at school, but Julia ran circles around Duo as he went to check up on the farm part of his house. Walking into the 10,000 square meter space - he got a good idea of how sick he'd been. Plants were wilted. Whole sections were brown. Several of the tending bots were too broken down to continue work. He coughed, an arm over his face, he also thought something had gone seriously wrong with the mulch system. Julia clung to his leg, face pressed against his jeans.

He ruffled her hair. "Go back upstairs, sweetie. We'll work on your plant lessons after I clean this up, okay?"

"Ponies?"

"Do some math until I come upstairs."

She groaned, staring up at him with big green eyes.

He squatted down, touched a fingertip to the tip of her nose. "Tell you what. You finish the 100th math module and I'll teach you how to make your own pony level. Get them to do anything you want."

"Can I make Rainbow Dash a boy?"

"If you want."

"Can I have an alive pet?"

"We'll talk about it."

"Can I go to school with the other kids?"

"When you are really feeling all better, yes."

"How long? I wanna play with the others."

"I know that Julia. I understand. As soon as you're well enough, we'll get you off to school. Then you're going to complain that you want to stay home. Right now though, go do more math, okay?"

She sighed. "Okay."

Duo watched her trudge into the elevator, then threw his whole effort into fixing up the food production center. Time was easy to lose as he got the bots fixed. He had a lunch of fresh tomatoes, avocado, and strawberries, then put his shoulder to clearing out the corn that hadn't been harvested and had long since turned brown. He had an actual scythe that Wufei had given him as a winter solstice gift one year. The blade was gundanium and illegal as fuck on any other colony. A few rows in, he peeled off his tee shirt, used it to wipe sweat from his face, the back of his neck, then went back to laying the corn over.

He was about half way through, leaning against his scythe, giving serious thought to the idea of making some scarecrows, setting up a holographic bonfire, and getting the kids down to roast marshmallows and fish, when Charlotte found him.

She stared at him, at the solid hard curves of his shoulders and lined abs, dark braid hang down past his ass.

"What?" He asked. "I was a little behind on the upkeep. I guess I wasn't feelin real well for a while."

"Really," she said like he'd just explained that water was oxygen and hydrogen. "The school called. There's a new exchange teacher, up from Earth. Apparently, she and Jacob got into it and she's claiming he assaulted her."

Duo wasn't quite sure how this was Heero's fault, but he was sure it had to be. "'Kay. I'll go talk to her. Don't cook dinner. I'm thinkin we're gonna roast shit down here tonight. I might bring the new teacher. She just gotta getta know us, I'm sure."

Charlotte shook her head vigorously. "I don't think that's a good idea, Duo."

He jumped down from the raised corn bed, his oak and gundanium scythe resting on his shoulders arms hanging over the sides. He winked at her, light violet eyes full of mischief. "You ever see the movie Jeepers Creepers," he asked as he walked away.

"I took twenty first century lit," she said offended.

Walking backwards, he wrinkled his nose and grinned. "I'm just sayin..."

Managing to work for Duo Maxwell for at least a year was really, really good for one's resume. This colony had free education. She really wanted to finish pre-med. Goals! One had to keep one's mind on the goals. "What are you going to do? Oh god!"

An hour later, Duo was cleaned up real good. He wore a dark tailored suit that Wufei had given him. His tie was a vivid blue that had always reminded him of Heero's eyes. His hair was rebraided, with black pearls braided in. Neat black nail polish gave his hands a serious and manicured look. Polished black shoes clicked against the smooth tile of the empty school hallway.

The school had been built on the design of a school Duo had seen in a grainy video he'd found in a damaged library during the war on Earth. He'd never really understood why the movie had been called 'Grease'. The vehicles in it barely counted as mecha, they weren't even the main part of the story and as near as he could no one even had sex it it, so he hadn't understood, but he had liked the love between Sandy and Danny. Heero was definitely the Sandy though. So it was the Rydel Primary school and it went from K through PhD level. It wasn't bad for a small colony.

He stopped in the office to let them know he was there, but it was empty. He didn't think that was a good sign. There were, however, cookies, and he was unreasonably hungry, so he helped himself to two. One went into his mouth like he was Cookie Monster, the other he just carried as he went in search of his kid that didn't make it home.

Duo felt completely whole in the school. There were no echos of any other voices, no hungers that weren't his. It wasn't the first time he'd thought about being a teacher. He went up the stairs three at a time and by the time he got to the top, he was sure it was all just a big misunderstanding.

Jacob was a good kid. He'd been born on a family ship, people who had evaded modern culture. Small ships were really vulnerable though. All kinds of bad shit could happen out living in the rocks. He'd been the only survivor, picked up in a cryopod a dozen years after the loss of his family's ship. The rescue crew dropped him off at L4 and Quatre's people shipped him to Duo.

He'd been with Duo for two years. He'd never had any trouble with Jacob.

Okay, so walking down the hall towards where a group of admin and teachers were clustered by a door. The principal saw Duo and waddled over to him. "Duo! I'm so glad you're here!"

"What's going on," he asked, taking her hand and shaking warmly, squeezing with reassurance.

"The new Earth History and politics teacher... it's her first day. She's the one we got as an exchange teacher for Hamilton.. He wanted to go down to Earth, you know, just for a year, and well, she's got really offensive ideas! I had NO idea! I swear! Jacob had her class last period and she's claiming he hit her. She says she wants to charge him with assault and is waiting for the police. I told her we don't have police!"

Duo's smile was tight and sharp, his eyes a little darker. "I can be the police. I'll sort it out."

Andie wrapped her arms around Duo's arm, leaning on him a little. "She came with such good recommendations!"

"I'm sure she has many positive qualities," Duo said, patting the principal's hands. "Don't worry. We'll get it all sorted out."

The little cluster of teachers and a couple of students from the student paper parted like the Red Sea. Duo rapped a knuckle on the glass panel of the door. "Comin' in."

The teacher in question was a bean pole of a person in a gray suit, her white hair pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She wore a little plaid bow tie and sported a nicely progressing black eye. Her arms were crossed over her chest, chin lifted as she eyed Duo. "Are you the police?"

"Kinda," Duo said as he signed his response.

Jacob jumped to his feet, a stocky built boy with mochacino skin and dark angry eyes. He signed a tirade at his dad, hands moving at lightening speed.

Duo nodded, signing slowly in response.

Mouth open the new exchange teacher eyed one then the other. "What are you doing?"

"Asking for his side of the story," Duo said, signing everything he said. "He says you took his tablet and that you shoved him when he tried to take it back. Did you?"

"I don't allow electronic devices in my classroom," she snarled. "Who are you?"

"I'm Duo Maxwell. I'm the mayor and I'm his dad. I'm also what passes for police around here. The safety officers are not going to respond to a call that doesn't have credible threats of actual harm."

"He hit me! I'm going to press charges against him. What ARE you doing with your hands?"

"This is American Sign Language. Oh, and Jacob says you're a racist asshole. I think he might be right," Duo said and signed.

Jacob laughed, the oddest cracked laughter.

The woman moved to put the desk between them. "What is he?"

"He's deaf, ya ignorant log. Haven't you ever met a deaf person before?"

"Goodness no! Why don't you give him appropriate medical care!"

Jacob had moved closer to Duo at that point, signing as he moved.

"I was born into a deaf family," Duo interpreted. "I like how I am. I'm sorry I hit you. I was afraid. May I please have my interpreting device back now?" Duo moved to stand by the kid who was a few inches taller than he was. "I think you should give him back his device."

She pulled it out of a desk drawer and put it on the desk, fingers pulling back like it burned her. "Even if you're sorry, it's still assault."

"It's not like you took any real damage," Duo pointed out. "Go over to the first aid kit and get it fixed."

"A bandage is not going to fix this! I think my eye socket might be fractured!"

"Is she really hurt," Jacob signed worriedly.

"She's fine," Duo said and signed. "Let me show you how to use the first aid kit."

He moved over to the very nondescript little box on the wall. "All rooms have them," he said and signed. "Put any finger on the little square in the center. Come on, try it. I think you'll find it really interesting. You are here to learn about us, right?"

"Poverty stricken savages," she hissed, but moved over to where Duo stood. Angry, she put her finger on the square. The box unfolded like a flower, petals forming and curling open.

"Oh I love this kind," Duo said. "I didn't realize we had any of these in the school! Highest level."

"It's only a blank screen," she mocked him. "What's it going to do, give me positive reinforcement?"

"If you want it to," Duo said, snickering. He pressed his thumb on the pale gray square below the screen. "Full medical assessment and treatment," he commanded.

An image of Galen, the Great Physician appeared. "Greetings, Patient. What is your name."

"Dr. Angela Ledbetter. I don't like AI."

"I see. Is that your complaint today? May I have your permission to scan you, Dr. Ledbetter?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, glared with her one non swollen eye. "Yes. Go on."

"I see that you are in pain. I'm sorry. Pain is always difficult. May I please have your permission to resolve all pain concerns and provide you with optimal health?"

"How are you going to do that from a screen," she snapped.

"I am happy to provide all the details and methods of every treatment I have available to me, but I think it would be easier to understand after you have experienced the treatment first hand. May I please proceed?"

"Yes, fine."

Duo took a step back. Jacob signed that he didn't think this was a good idea. Duo winked, grinning like a maniac. Which if Angela had seen that grin, she might have made some other choice, changed her mind, something.

The first aid kit blinked. A bright light seemed to pop in the air around her.

Jacob signed, "Dad... it's gonna come out bad."

"Nah," Duo signed back, "gonna be fine."

The light was gone and Angela staggered a bit. Duo rushed to catch her and set her down. "Give it a moment. You're all better now."

Dazed, she sat down in her chair... and then she caught sight of her hands. She froze there staring at her outstretched hands. She slowly turned them over, looking at her palms... the smooth skin, healthy skin, creamy and white. After a moment more of staring, she ripped open the drawer, dug into her handbag and found a mirror. The woman staring back at her had no wrinkles, a nice color to her skin, sandy blond hair, thick lashes, soft full red lips, not even the slightest hint of black eye. She dropped the mirror and it shattered into a dozen skidding parts.

She looked up at him, those red lips parted, golden lashes fluttering. "Whaaaa..."

"Hey there's no bruising now, right? You feel better, doncha? Not bad fer poverty stricken savages, uh?" Duo grinned, pointing at her with both hands. "Don't worry, no medical bills here."

"You're a monster."

"Maybe sometimes," Duo said, going back to speaking and signing again.

Jacob had his device now and it spoke for him, "You don't wanna make him real mad."

"Why... why doesn't it fix him then?" She looked at Jacob, looked back at Duo.

"Because there's nothing wrong with me. You didn't like being old, or Galen wouldn't have fixed it."

"Old is natural! Natural!"

Duo had lost all sense of wearing a fine suit and looking proper. Jacket unbuttoned, hands shoved deep in his pockets, the jacket bunching around his arms, he shrugged, "So. Hey, to like welcome you to Camelot.L2, I was thinking I might invite you over for dinner. I was thinking we could roast marshmallows and fish, do a Jeepers Creepers theme. Wanna come over for dinner then?"

"NO. No, I do not want to come over for dinner," she said, eyes wide, a pained grin pasted on her face. "Thank you so much for the offer."

"Well, some other time then," Duo said. "Me and Jacob gotta go now, but just to be sure, we're all good now, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. Thanks for, uh," she said, hands gripping the arms of her chair, "Coming in for such a lovely parent teacher conference. Anytime."

Galen, who hadn't been shut back down, frowned. "I sense you are getting a headache. May I apply follow up treatment?"

"No!" Angela nearly screamed, grabbing her handbag and half running for the door.

Duo followed her out the door and stood with the school staff as he scratched the back of his head. "She's a strange one, alright."

The student reporter slipped up close to him. "Mayor Maxwell, would you like to give a statement?"

"Oh sure," he turned to Jacob and signed, "Is it okay if I tell them?"

Jacob nodded, smiling brightly.

"Jacob has been accepted to pre-law, starting next year, on Paris.L1. I'm extremely proud of him."

"Oh that's great!" Sam, the reporter, said, "Good job," he signed in Jacob's direction.

Jacob beamed. Duo signed, "See? I told you it would come out great."


	4. Chapter 4

A Wrench to the Heart 4/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Warning: Mention of suicide attempt

Duo knew he was dreaming. In the dream he stood on a great open blue plain. The horizon existed only because his mind said there must be one. The smooth surface was chill to his bare feet. His blue jeans hung around slender hips. His braid swung over bare shoulder blades. He knew what these dreams meant.

Sometimes though, sometimes he could find Heero in these dreams. He turned slowly around. It wasn't real. He knew it wasn't real. It was just a dream.

In it though, he could let go of all the fears, let go of all the energy it to be normal and not scare the people around him. In here, he had no responsibility for anyone other than himself. He wasn't sure when he'd started running, but he ran. The power in his body at its best gave him stride and power. It wasn't like running in the wars when he was constantly hungry and frightened. This was a man running, running towards because sometimes in these dreams he could find Heero.

The sound of a train cut the silence. It wasn't a train like his colony had, not the quaint Victorian looking trains, but a modern subway kind of train. "Heero!"

They'd been lovers, fuck buddies really, in the wars. Secret. Neither had said it was more than that. Duo wasn't sure just when it had gone from the very wild and wicked temptation of having someone else wrap gentle hand around his cock to having Heero's love wrapped around his heart. There was a moment, after Heero had shot down that damn shuttle, when he'd been vulnerable, cracked in some way, but Duo remembered Heero looking at him like, like something he hadn't understood at the time, but it was from that moment that Duo's own spirit had started to heal. It was in that moment that he'd understood someone else could love him. He might be a worthless rat, but he was a loveable rat.

He didn't remember when he stopped running. Sweat ran down his back and he leaned over, hands on his slightly bent knees. It wasn't real. It was just a dream. God, he had more control over his everyday life than he had over his dreams. But then he saw the train.

Just some ordinary subway, nothing special, just kind of grubby and grey where it might have once been white. Heero stood on the platform with a bunch of other people. All of them were just ordinary people, Duo wanted to run so badly, but he found his legs could barely walk now. As he walked, he sank slowly into the chill blue of the ground. That train pulled away. Heero flicked his hand and a small screen popped up. He tapped away at it.

Duo felt like he was sinking. Fog rose around him, choking him, but he reached and pushed, until he was crawling and sinking.

The moment he touched Heero's pant leg, he was suddenly back on his feet, the fog gone.

The man looked at him... just some man.. But he looked out of Heero's face, Heero's eyes. Duo's heart felt crushed.

"Heero?"

But unlike the past, this dream Heero didn't see him. Didn't respond to him. Panic grabbed Duo then and he feared... what he feared most was that he was going to let Heero go. Suddenly the train became a metaphor and Duo grabbed at Heero's arms, wanting to shake him, making see him, make him stay! "Heero! Don't go! Okay? I get it! I know I'm just... I'm just dreaming and you're not really in my dreams, but I need you to stay! Do you understand? Baby! I love you!"

His Heero didn't pay any attention to him though, just kept typing on his screen. Duo finally looked a that and it was really detailed for a dream. AlexanderTanaka Sorento. . Duo tilted his head. The email wasn't anything particular. So the new textbook was acceptable. Sincerely. Alexander.

Really?

Only then did Heero turn to look at him. Duo's breath caught by how intense and real the connection was when Heero looked at him. "I'll never really let you go. You'll always live in my thoughts and my heart!"

Heero smiled softly, the soft and genuine smile that Heero had when it was just the two of them.

"Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!1"

"What the hell, Heero? What does that mean?" Duo leaned closer though, feeling completely connected to Heero, not caring if it was only a dream. He'd just stay right there and never wake up again. "I'll stay here with you. We can stay here together."

Just before his lips touched Heero's, before he completely committed to never leaving the dream, a scream ripped through the hallway. His eyes were open and he was out of bed before he was fully awake.

Charlotte ran to him. "Duo! There's an intruder! There's a ghost!"

Duo's heart rate dropped back to normal. "Seriously? I was having a really good dream."

"No. No... I ... the door I'm not supposed to touch! I ... heard crying.. And I know you said never to try to open it.. But I did... and that's when I saw her! Oh my god... What happened in this house?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "No, really. Seriously? You said you were atheist in our interview. A ghost is your best explanation?"

"It was the girl from the Ring! I know what I saw!"

Duo grunted, realized he was standing naked in the hall and rubbed between his eyes. "No. You don't. Don't completely flip yer nut. Let me put some pants on. I'll show you."

"You're not leaving me out here in the hall alone!"

Duo threw a hand up in the air and let her follow him back into his room. "There is always, always a rational explanation for everything."

"I thought.. You believed in God during the wars. What happened?"

Duo pulled on a pair of grey sweat pants. "I grew the fuck up. Come on."

"So... what's in there," she said, following behind him as if he were a suitable human shield against vengeful spirits.

"One of my earliest kids... She was a burn victim."

"Did she die," Charlotte said, her hands touching Duo's bare shoulders.

"She tired," Duo admitted, entering the security code for the door at the end of the hall. "Try not to scream again. It bothers her."

"Bothers her," Charlotte complained, hiding behind Duo as he opened the door.

"Hey, Julia. It's just me. Ima turn the lights on."

"No." Julia, his little pony playing girl said in her normal voice. "I don't wanna see."

"Well, then close your eyes, Sweetie. You scared the shit out of Charlie and you know better."

"Ohhhhhh," she complained as the lights came on. "But I did my math!"

The room was small, but filled with life support equipment. There was a fairly large sphere, large enough to hold a full grown man, but the person inside was burned terribly, without limbs, floating in a clear gel, but at least a late teen sized body.

Charlotte stepped around Duo, starring. "What happened?"

Julia, young Julia, ran to Duo and he picked her up, as if she were made of flesh and blood. Today her hair was red curls again, green eyes.

"Julia had a bad day, but she's feeling a little better every day!"

"But! Why can't you just... It would only take a moment to just... the Galen system. It would heal her in a blink!"

"Charlie," Duo said gently, his hand petting Julia's hair, soothing her. "It's not the body that's hurt. It's the mind."

"I'm going to go to school soon," Julia said firmly. "Can I sleep with you tonight, Daddy?"

"Sure, Sweetie," Duo said. "Julia can take whatever form she wants. When you tried to get into her room, she was just trying to scare you away."

Thumb in her mouth, she lifted her head. "Was I scary?"

"Very much so! Don't do that again." Charlotte put her hands on her hips and glared.

"Okay. I'm sorry."

"I didn't mean to scare you," Charlotte said, turning her back to the broken body and focusing on the little girl in Duo's arms. "I will never hurt you."

"I afraid you'd think I'm ugly."

"I did wonder how your hair changed color," Charlotte said playfully. "If you can look like anything you want, why do you never be Rainbow Dash?"

"I'm not a pony," Julia said. "I'm a little boy."

"Really," Charlotte said, blinking. "You're a boy?"

"Yeah," Julia said, snuggling against Duo.

"Come on," Duo said, herding Charlotte out. "Go back to bed. Don't pry into things I didn't offer to share. Some things around here are actually dangerous, Charlie. There are things that medical tech can't bring you back from." He carried Julia into his room, shut the door, leaving Charlotte to just... live with the echos of the very real seeming ring girl.

Julia curled up and he tucked her in, rubbing her back until she fell asleep. He snuggled down into his blankets and pillows, wondering... about Alexander Tanaka. He wanted to fall back into the same dream... to finish that kiss. If Heero were alive, even if he had to hide, he'd have reached out. He'd have contacted him... somehow. Duo never made any sound when he cried.


	5. Chapter 5

A Wrench to the Heart 5/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Charlotte's room was nice. That had surprised her. She'd honestly expected to arrive on Camelot.L2 and find some barely habitable hamster wheel. The thing was she desperately wanted to go to medical school on L4 and it was ungodly hard to get into, but if one could pass pre-med on Camelot.L2 AND work for Duo Maxwell for a year, then, her advisor promised her, the Quatre Rabera Winner would write a personal recommendation letter and you were a shoe in. With a medical degree out of Main.L4, she could write her ticket anywhere in the solar system, go to any new colony, a deep space ship, even a post on Earth - if she wanted. She did want, but a month into her contract with the Maxwell household there hadn't been a day when she wasn't sure if she was going to make a year here.

It was like Jane Eyre, except there were a lot more kids, the locked up person could float down the hall like a ghost, and the head of household was both gay as shit and crazy as shit. It was just... there wasn't another way to both get into medical school and be able to afford medical school.

She lay in her bed staring at the ceiling comparing how she thought it was going to be to how it was. So it was supposed to be a 45 year old war Heero who lost the love of his life and has since devoted his life to helping difficult children in a world where difficult is not well tolerated. So cook some meals, change some diapers, study a lot, maybe listen to the old man talk about his lost love. She thought there would be a lot of nodding. She thought this year was going to be mostly boring and repetitive.

Instead her boss looked like a teenager and acted younger, on occasion. Once he'd looked at her and his eyes had been dark as wine, his smile psychotic. This was so far from The Sound of Music that she was pretty sure she'd fallen into Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter was well and truly mad and some of the mice at his table were scary as fuck.

She closed her eyes and mouthed, "Medical school, medical school, medical school."

Then the scent of something burning flooded her mind with adrenaline and she was up out of bed, hair in a lion's mane around her head, white nightgown fluttering around her bare legs as she ran down stairs. She burst through the swinging double doors, eyes wide, smoke around her like a halo.

The kids were all at the huge table, plates and cups in front of them. They all stared at her like she had lost her mind. Duo was at the stove, a chef hat on, apron slightly asque, and a huge grin on his face. The griddle was humming along with another six pancakes, half of them flipped and a lovely golden brown. He pointed the spatula at her. "Good morning, Miss Charlie! You're up a little early. Super hungry today? I've been real hungry the last week."

Her face was long, her expression dumbstruck, then one eyebrow slowly arched. "Did you burn some pancakes?"

"Oh, no. I was just teaching how to put out a fire." He pointed the spatula at a metal trash container that clearly was never going to be used again. "Good experience!"

She blinked. She blinked again. Her jaw hurt from all the things she was not staying to this man who was, despite all reason, apparently, a very important man in the scheme of Earthsphere politics. "You - intentionally - set an actual fire in a metal can on a space colony? Intentionally?"

"Yeah," Duo said, flipping the pancakes off onto a plate for Clara to take and give out to the kids. "On purpose and everything. Fires'er very dangerous. Got to know how to take care'em."

"They're children! They don't put out fires! We have fire specialists to put out fires!"

Duo picked up a pancake, took a bite of it, as he stared at her, perhaps waiting for her to come to her senses. "Wul. Here...we all put out fires. Can't never tell when you'll be on a ship somewhere and it's you and the fire. Fire's bad. It wants the O2 more than we do sometimes." He dipped his pancake in syrup, sprayed whipped cream on it, took a huge bite, and watched her think about what he said.

"You can't expect children to put out fires!" She protested, feet apart, hands on her hips.

"I expect them to live," Duo said firmly, eyes narrowing, darkening a little. "I expect them to crawl their burning asses to a life pod and survive, because that's what we do, don't we?" He looked at the table. The kids all nodded. Julia's avatar caught fire and ran screaming into the backyard, but not real flames and she was clearly playing, arms over her head, running around the swing set screaming. Duo watched her out the window for a bit, lips kind of pursed, until he was satisfied that she wasn't actually upset. "Okay! Who wants ice cream?"

Her bare foot tapped against the floor. This wasn't Alice in Wonderland! It was Peter Pan and somehow, she, the girl who ran away to be a personal assistant for a crazy man and his dozen kids was cast as Wendy, the responsible one. The world was inside out. "Have you lost your bleeding mind? Don't give kids ice cream for breakfast!"

Duo rolled his eyes. "Ice cream and cake. I learned that on Earth. It's a great Earth delicacy!"

"Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!" The table denizens chanted.

Duo pointed to a spot. "Sit down Charlie. You need to eat too. We'll all need the calories. We're going camping. You'll burn up all these calories, no problem!"

She gave up and sat where he said and he set a plate of four huge pancakes, with syrup, eggs, peanut butter, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream in front of her. "Gotta eat when you can!"

"Duo," she said, voice low. "May I speak with you privately?"

While she was speaking, Julia came back in, her hair fried and matted, her cheeks blistered. She grabbed onto Duo's leg, holding him tight. "Yeah, yeah, Charlie, gimme a minute." He went to one knee. "Hey Sweetie."

"Is okay?" Julia said, tears slipping down her burned face.

"It's okay. You're okay. I'm very proud of you. It's very hard, I know. Want some ice cream?"

"Yes, please," she said and he picked her up, depositing her on the bench next to Charlotte.

"Okay, Miss Charlie, please come into mah office," Duo said, playing up an accent he didn't really have.

Big eyes looked at each other around the table. As soon as the door closed to the walkin. Jacob signed and his translator spoke in hushed tones, "Are they going to fight?"

Saphron, a girl with dark skin, one eye dreadlocks shook her head. She'd been at Duo's house for five years. In two more, she'd be and adult. "No. This happens almost every year, if the assistant is going to stay. They flip out. He reminds them of their terms and conditions and they settle down. Charlie's been her too long for her to quit now."

"She only been here a month," Mark pointed out.

"One year, we went through ten assistants before we got one that stuck it out. There was one I didn't like. She was damn hard to get rid of," Saphron boasted.

"So what is this camping thing?" Mark asked, picking at his food. He was a skinny kid who barely looked his 13 years. He'd come from L3. No one knew quite why he was there and he wasn't talking about it.

"We do it every year. It's the anniversary of Heero Yuy's funeral." Saphron said, spearing another pancake from the main plate. "We're gonna walk till we die."

"I don't wanna die," Alexander said stubbornly, a bit of whipped cream on his nose. "Dead people stink."

There was a general agreement on that, nodding and wrinkled noses.

Saphron poured a bit more orange juice. "We're not really gonna die. We're gonna walk like twenty miles. The really little kids all get to go in a wagon. The Forest is like... done like real Earth stuff. I saw a real bear in there one year. It's some real shit."

Once they were behind the closed metal door, she smacked the back of her hand against her palm, looking up at him as if he were a small child and she was going to put him right, one way or the other. "I will have you know that I studied for two years in anticipation of taking this position! I studied early childhood education and diplomacy! I accepted room and board in exchange for my efforts around the clock for a full year. I understood before I got here that you were... eccentric! You are beyond the bounds on all acceptable parenting technique! You sir are no Duo Maxwell and you should try to follow the rules a little more!"

Duo had his normal speech all planned out. It had worked a dozen times, with slight modifications. His mouth just hung a little open now though because no one had ever accused him of being not Duo Maxwell. Folk had accused him of many things, most fairly well credible, but never of not being quite good enough to be Duo Maxwell. "Ya wanna leave?"

"No!" She said, arms across her chest, "I just... there has to be more structure. I need no more surprises. You can't keep secrets like one of the kids might turn into a vengeful ghost at any moment and where do you think you're taking a group of kids like this into some park somewhere?"

"What'cha mean a group'o kids like these ones?" Duo asked, eyes narrowing, as he considered that maybe he'd ask her to leave.

"But," she paused, sensing she was getting into dangerous territory. "It's just... most ... in most places... children shouldn't be allowed to decline medical care."

"So you think people should be forced into something and lose all that they are," Duo asked, his own arms across his chest.

"Well, when the are that disconnected from their body... Sometimes trauma is best... released."

"You're not going to be a good fit here. You want to go to university on Main.L4. I'll arrange transport."

"No way," she said, chin lifted, "I'm not leaving before my year is over. It won't hurt you to hear some outside opinions! I won't challenge you or undermine you! I want to support you. Even in the month I've been here I've seen that you do wonderful work with the kids. I just ... I don't like feeling so out of control. Julia scared me to death last night! Give me a little space!"

"You're the one that wanted to talk privately," Duo pointed out. "I just made you breakfast, that's all."

'You didn't make a breakfast! You made a dietary apocalypse! Their blood sugars are going to go insane! I can't eat that kind of food. It'll kill you!"

"Nonsense," Duo said, wiggling his nose. "We'll walk it off. I always do this on this day."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "On International Heero Yuy day, you take your kids and go walking?"

"Yup. No electronics, no cell signal for 48 hours," Duo grinned. "It's gonna be amazing!" Duo touched the sides of his fingers to his forehead and then pointed at her.

"It's gonna be a nightmare," she whispered.

"So? You going to The Forest or are you going to Main.L4?"

"The Forest."

And then the doorbell rang...


	6. Chapter 6

A Wrench to the Heart 6/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Duo grabbed the silly chef hat from his head and stomped to the frontdoor. Hair wild standing on end and lightly covered in pancake mix, he pulled open the door and glared. "What do you want?"

Dr. Angela Ledbetter smiled, a tray of candy apples held in both hands. As she stared at Duo her expression transitioned from forced cheerfulness to complete bewilderment. "Dr. Maxwell... I.. I thought we might not have gotten off to a great start. I understand it's a holiday on Camelot... to celebrate the life of Heero Yuy and I thought I might come by and spend some time with you and the kids."

They stared at each other for a moment.

She smiled nervously.

He took a slow breath. He had not slept enough. He had to have the 'are you staying or going' conversation with the new assistant and it was the day everyone talked about Heero Yuy. 'I don't think he's really dead,' was like the last thing one could stay today and if he was anywhere near any kind of a messaging system, he was going to have all kinds of questions he didn't want to answer. "Yeah. It's a holiday. We're going camping."

"How lovely! I love camping! Is there a place to fish, as well?" Her smile became genuine and confident. "Have you ever been to Earth?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "Yes. Yes, I have. It was an experience I'll never forget."

"May I please come with you? Maybe we can talk about Earth?"

"No talking about Earth," Duo said firmly. "You can come. Might as well. Do you like pancakes, Dr. Ledbetter?"

"I do! Let me cook! You don't look like you've eaten yet." She pushed her tray of candied apples into his hands "I think you're really doing amazing work. Your name sake would be so proud!" She smiled, waiting for his permission to talk over the kitchen.

Duo's thoughts went to Father Maxwell and the man's guidance and leadership. In that moment, remembering the older priest was only pleasant. Duo smirked, smiled, shrugged. "Okay. Fine. You can make me breakfast. We're walking today though, gonna be walking ten miles in, and back. No data connection, other than the first aid kit, and I don't let anyone else know I'm bringing that."

"Sounds very intense, but that's okay with me. What do you like to be called. When I'm not at school, I liked to be called Angela, okay?"

"Yeah, sure thing, Angela. I'm Duo. Pretty much everyone calls me Duo."

"Very nice to actually meet you, Duo. I'm sorry about my first impression. It was stupid of me," Angela said.

Duo motioned towards the kitchen. "Ima take a moment and I'll be right there."

Duo closed the bathroom door and leaned on it. He wanted the day to stop right there. It had started out well enough and he'd had real high hopes, been very excited about it. Walking all day and showing the kids plants, bugs, fishing, looking at start, and just not being in the greater world for a couple of days. After a moment of leaning against the bathroom door, he opened up the first aid kit, "Low nag," he whispered and the screen resolved into Heero's face. "Tell me I'm doing okay."

"Hi Duo," the AI said in Heero's 15 year old voice, "You're doing good. I'm proud of you."

"Do you still love me?"

"I'm only a simulation, Duo."

"Fuck it. Tell me you love me anyway or that I'm loveable that it's good I'm alive. Do you think the real Heero could have loved me?"

"As far as I understand human intentions, I believe he intended to form a long term relationship with you. I have found a receipt for a ring in your size that he purchased three months prior to his last known contact. The ring was never picked up, but your name is also on the receipt."

"Why didn't you tell me about this before," Duo demanded, hands on the wall to the sides of the drab looking med kit.

"You didn't ask a question to which that was a plausible answer."

"What is a connection between Heero and the poet Emily Dickinson?"

"I don't know of any connection between them. You might ask Relena. She has his effects and two books by Emily Dickinson were listed as property transferred to her."

"Dat so," Duo said, "Thanks, Heero." Duo said, fingers brushing over the smooth screen.

The feeling when things were going to fuzzy always started like a buzz in his mind, like the air was a little too thin to really work in his lungs. He pressed his fingers to his temples. "Stop. Just calm down, calm down," he whispered.

He blinked and he was in a hotel room. The air was drier, purer. He wasn't on Camelot.L2. Head spinning, he sat down on the bed and ran both hands through his hair. The hotel wasn't the best, wasn't completely skanky either. Written on the mirror, in blue marker, "Alexander Tanaka."

The flashback swallowed him and he was at the camp ground, back against his favorite big rock. On the surface, he'd been chipper and charming all day, teaching plant recognition, biology, evolution, survival, how to purify water, and by the end of the day, he'd set up the nice temporary shelters he'd build for each of them. One good thing about getting them to walk so far was that they were all out like rocks, or so he thought. He hadn't had a shelter for Angela, so he'd given her his and he honestly expected her to be in it. So he thought he was alone when he had the breakdown. He turned the first aid box, back against that rock, thinking he'd just get simulated Heero to talk to him.

Angela wasn't in the shelter though. She was standing right beside him and the only thing prevented her from getting her nosy ass shot was that Duo hadn't carried a gun in a long time.

"I know him. That's Professor Tanaka. I met him when I did an exchange into the L1 cluster. Nice, man, brilliant, doesn't talk much."

Duo felt all over the sense of being reborn in the flashback that he'd had the moment she said it. "That's Heero Yuy."

"Oh there might be some resemblance. All the photos from that period always show him so much more dignified and noble."

"Ya think so?" Duo asked, remembering a time when he caught Heero picking his nose. "Nobel, uh?"

"It was a different time," she said.

From that moment, to making sure the kids were taken care of, getting passage, getting through immigration on this upstart L1 donut - he'd actually had to call Quatre to get him to apply pressure on L1 immigration. As it was, they gave him a three day visa. So they were still a little mad about that protest to draw attention to Heero not being dead. Just because there had been public nudity and he took over the colony's media outlets for nearly an hour. That was at least twenty some odd years before. They really ought to be more forgiving.

By the time his thoughts cleared enough to function enough again, he'd lost another hour. According to his calendar, he had twelve hours before his visa expired and they were after him. And they would be.

The local map though was good enough to give him the address for one Professor Alexander Tanaka. Duo ran out the door. He'd run all the way if he had to. Once Heero saw him! He'd remember... he'd explain! Everything would be okay!


	7. Chapter 7

A Wrench to the Heart 7/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Warning: Duo's having quite a break down. There will be law enforcement.

Duo didn't actually run all the way to Alexander Tanaka's house. He caught a public light rail and then a ride share. Nothing moved fast enough. As he ran down the street towards Tanaka's house, towards Heero's house... his mind was too filled with light to think clearly. Love made his heart hurt. Reality bent.

The moment he actually laid eyes on Heero's house, then he wasn't on the colony at all. He was on the boarding deck of a cruiseliner. There were pretty Japanese lanterns swinging in a virtual breeze and a sweep of Milky Way above them, muted and glittering like it looked through Earth's atmosphere, though he knew they were boarding off of Main.L1. He was walking backwards swaying his hips to the Hawaiian music and Heero was only a step behind him.

Heero's hair was longer, pulled into a ponytail. He was taller than wartime Heero, the Heero that Duo normally remembered. Duo knew he'd sank down on the grass in front of Alexander Tanaka's house and he tried really, really hard to keep aware of both realities. On the lawn, he held his head with both hands, on the boarding deck, he held out both hands to Heero, felt those strong warm hands take his and pull him close.

Heero pulled him close, arms around him, those smooth thin lips against his ear, "My life would not be worth living without you."

And with that, Duo lost all connection to the lawn, to anything outside of Heero's arms. "Don't let me go, Heero. I'm so scared. I think I'm losing my mind."

"Don't be afraid," Heero said, tugging Duo's braid gently. "This is it. We're getting this trip. No more politics. No more war. No more interference. Just you and me. We're going to build a new life."

Tears ran down his face, which was the lawn experience leeching into the ship experience. "Don't leave me, Heero. Don't let me go!"

The boarding deck reached the highest point and Heero turned Duo around, hands on his shoulders. "Don't be nervous. Everything is going to work out."

The ship's name was written in great black and gold letters, elegant and antique-y. "The Rage."

Duo wanted to fight, dig in his heels, not get on the ship, but he was walking forward, laughing in the one experience, crying in the other. Staff members reached out grab his hands, shaking, welcoming him, "Welcome aboard Dr. Maxwell, Commander Yuy! We're so happy to have you with us! Congratulations!"

"Are you alright?" Heero asked, much more irritated and matter of fact than the Heero holding onto his shoulders, who he desperately wanted to Heero what Heero was saying. It was important. It was so important. It sounded like... "Soon this will be real," in Heero's words, whispered in his ear, but Heero was also picking him up.

"I love you," Duo whispered.

"Oh, yes, I do remember you," Heero said as he carried him.

Duo wrapped his arms around Heero's shoulders, buried his face against Heero's neck. This was so much better than any memory. "Heero! I found you!"

"Try to stay calm," Heero said, soothing, authoritarian, confident. "You're having some kind of seizure. I've already called emergency response. They should be here shortly," Heero continued as he set Duo down on his couch.

"No.. No! I'm not having a seizure. You're Heero Yuy! I'm Duo Maxwell."

Heero squatted down in front of him, not trying to get his hands back. "My name is Alexander Tanaka. I teach astronautics at University L1 now. I'm only 45. I've never met Duo Maxwell," Alexander said gently. "You were here twenty years ago and I remember you from that. You look exactly the same."

"Technology and medical science," Duo said, feeling grounded now, some sense of wholeness returning to him. He reached out very cautiously to touch a small scar on Heero's face. "I gave you that, but you don't remember, do you? Do remember being on The Rage?"

Alexander leaned into Duo's touch, just slightly, blue eyes confused. "I was on The Rage. It was a graduation present from my dad. My parents are coming up next week, from to celebrate my promotion. I'm really sorry that I'm not the man you're looking. Anyone would be lucky to have you look at them with that much love."

"But... you are," Duo said scooting a little closer. "Look.. we were both on The Rage. I remember being on it with you. Something happened on that ship. Come to Camelot.L2. You can teach there. You'll remember."

Alexander stood up and took a step back. "After you came the last time, I looked up Heero Yuy's life. He had a miserable life. He was deranged and suicidal. I have family. I have a nephew. I don't have nightmares. I don't take dangerous jobs. I bicycle to work and lecture intelligent students. I'm not Heero Yuy. I've never killed anyone. I've never piloted a Gundam. I'm Professor Alexander Tanaka and there is no way I'd move into the L2 cluster," he said, wrinkling his nose.

"Well...what I stayed here with you for a little while? I'll call you Alexander? I can get a job. I'm a doctor. I can get my license back. We can...date?"

"I would like you to consider that you're stalking me. I think you might be schizophrenic. You need help, not a date. Look, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but I'd like it if you didn't come back to my house. I have a good life. You should go have a good life. Your Heero wouldn't want you to chase after ghosts."

"You're wrong," Duo said, trying really hard not to cry. "Maybe you're not my Heero. My Heero would know that I would never stop looking for him. I would never abandon him, even if he asked me to. My Heero would never give up on who he was to live a comfortable lie."

"I'm not your Heero," Alexander said apologetically. "I kind of wish I was."

Duo stood up, willing his body to be relaxed, non-threatening. Heero had often been a bit jump at times of stress. "Kiss me."

"What?" Alexander asked, arching an eyebrow in a very Heero sign of irritation.

"I said... kiss me. You're not Heero and it won't make any difference, right? You know you want to," Duo said, cajoling just the way that used to work so well with Heero."

Alexander took a small step closer, a bit more color in his face. "Why would I kiss you? I don't want to take advantage of you when you clearly are mentally unstable," but he kept moving closer as he spoke until his last words were spoken brushing against Duo's lips.

Duo held perfectly still as if a butterfly were landing on his lips. An electric butterfly. He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes until their lips touched and both of them had their wide open, blue into violet. Alexander's hand flew into Duo's hair, fingers sinking into the warm brown tangles left from racing halfway across the colony. Those fingers pressed, pulling Duo to him and the kiss that started out a brush of butterfly turned into a shooting star, burning into each other as their tongues caressed, danced, so familiar...

Euphoria breathed into Duo's being, a joy at coming home, that all the wishes he'd ever had were fulfilled. Heero's kiss, touch, acceptance. Another flashback hit him like ice water and he went limp in Heero's arms. They were in the stateroom... beautiful room... surreal. Heero smiled, this loving beautiful smile. "I didn't know you... actually liked me back."

Everything was so out of joint, so crazy... but instead of responding to Heero's admission, Duo spun towards their stateroom door, his hand on a pistol holstered at the small of his back. The doorknob rattled and then he screamed. The scream filled Alexander's little house until Duo ran out of breath. Shaking hard, he was only still on his feet because of Heero's hands on his arms.

"Your eyes are bleeding," Heero/Alexander said horrified.

"Cool," Duo whispered before passing out. 

Alexander paced in the insane man's hospital room. L1 was not charitable, per se. L1 used a market economy and they expected to be paid in currency. The bursar's office for Camelot.L2 which was officially listed as an educational station, offered payment in natural natural resources, freshly mined or synthesized. Apparently Duo's weight in gold was not sufficient to pay for his medical care. The hospital administrator had made it abundantly clear that the moment Alexander walked out of the room or fell asleep, they were putting the illegal alien, whose visa was now well and truly expired, into an emergency medical transport and shooting him back to Camelot.

The deposit that they required to secure Duo's care required that Alexander take out a mortgage on his house, which to his great surprise, he was actually eager to do. He had no sane way to explain why the care of some deranged savage from the L2 cluster, why this man's well being mattered to him, but it did. Why it mattered enough to be willing to pay for the man's well being with his house, he really did not understand. He knew nothing about him, other than he'd found his way to his house twice and made insane claims.

Poor insane man.

Alexander touched fingertips to his lips and remembered that kiss though. It was the first kiss he'd ever had and it felt like a kiss he'd always known. It felt like the kiss he'd been waiting for, why nothing else had ever been good enough to even try.


	8. Chapter 8

A Wrench to the Heart 8/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

The door opened and Alexander moved to stand by the bed, glaring. "My financing will come through," he challenged, arms across his chest.

"That is not going to be necessary," Quatre said. His attendant pushed his wheelchair in. She was a tall woman in a face scarf, and modest clothing that were clearly designed to not restrict her movements should there be conflict. "I have resolved the financial concerns."

Alexander's blue eyes narrowed at the strange man. He was so old, older than old, and yet there was something familiar about him, so familiar the deja vu gave him nausea. "Do I know you?"

"Yes, and no," Quatre said, moving around the other side of the bed. It took him a moment to get his hands onto the bed so he could take hold of Duo's hand, rubbing the back with his thumb. "I really should have known better."

"Do you know what's wrong with him," Alexander asked. He could leave now, he told himself. The man's family was here. He didn't need to stay anymore. He took a deep breath and accepted it... he was not going to leave. He didn't want to leave. A new understanding of the world settled into him and he knew he would be resigning the job he'd been working towards for ten years. He'd be moving the wilds of L2. Maybe insanity was contagious.

"Not completely, but enough to start finding a solution, if there is one. You can go now, if you like. I'll make sure he's taken care of. I'm sorry he bothered you."

"No," Alexander said, sitting down in the closest chair. "Tell me about him."

Quatre leaned back in his chair and his attendant reached out to lift Duo's limp hand back onto the hospital bed.

"He's reckless," Quatre said, bent old fingers lacing together under his chin. "He's loyal. He's as old I am, but he loves technology and we were able to arrest his aging many years ago. He has a brain tumor caused by use of an illegal brain altering device. It was an act of violence and my family will pursue his attackers until the universe is no more. He and I were in the war together and he is as much my family as anyone who bears my blood."

While Quatre had been speaking, Alexander stood and paced slowly, filled with nervous energy he didn't understand. "I'm Professor Alexander Tanaka. Why does he think I'm Heero Yuy?"

Quatre took a deep breath, leaned back. His attendant rubbed his temples gently and he sat there for a what felt like a horrible amount of time to Alexander. "L1 is so self righteous. They won't let me smoke, no matter who I am."

"And who are you?" Alexander snapped. He could remember this man. He knew this man. It was there, right there, just at the edge of his mind, but it fell off the edge like the edge of the known world fell away and there were only sea monsters past that thought. It was almost physically painful.

"I am Quatre Raberba Winner. Amira, close the door. Do not let anyone enter."

Her dark eyes eyed Alexander as if she weren't sure if she were going to kill him rather than leave him alone with her boss. She pulled a small embroidered bag from the storage space under his seat and held it out to him. "Master."

"Alexander is not a risk."

The woman bowed and moved to close and guard the door.

"Come help me with this," Quatre stated, his bent fingers having trouble opening the bag.

Alexander rolled his eyes, but moved to be helpful. He leaned over and opened the handmade little bag. Inside was a custom golden vaporizer. "If you turn this on, they will be in here to throw us both out, and then they will ship Duo in a glorified escape pod."

"They will not," Quatre said, smiling as he lit up his vaporizer. "Their security staffing company was very recently acquired by someone with a keen interest and all of the staff have been withdrawn and forbidden from this floor. My personal security staff will support this floor while I'm here. In fifteen minutes, my medical staff will be here and we will remove Duo and take him home."

"And he won't be back?"

"He probably will. I've built him a very nice fishbowl, but he's very hard to contain."

"Maybe he could ... just stay here?"

Quatre took a very long slow draw on his vaporizer. "He runs a group home for children who do not fit well into the system. There are twelve, thirteen, something like that. They would never survive here and he will never leave them permanently, not even for you."

"What does he need to be well?" Alexander moved to the foot of the bed where he touched the edge of Duo's foot, like he was touching a door that he hadn't opened in a very great deal of time.

"Is it something I can give him?"

"Not as far as I know. What I know is that he and Heero were on The Rage. Heero was a Preventer and Duo had been serving in the medical corps of the Preventers. They were working on a missing persons case. The Rage was destroyed on that voyage with a loss of nearly five hundred passengers and crew."

"They say that Heero Yuy died on that flight," Alexander said, staggering a little to sit down in a chair by the window.

"That is what they say," Quatre said softly. "On that flight, attackers attempted to overwrite Duo's memories and personality with data of their choice. The attempt failed. However the malicious patterning can not be removed without the original encryption key."

"Is that what happened to..." Alexander turned to look at his reflection in the mirror for a moment, "Is that what happened to Heero Yuy?"

Quatre took another long inhale on his vape. From the sounds of it, there were several medical people and several of Quatre's personal security outside were having strongly worded conversations outside the door. "From what we were able to understand, Heero Yuy's mind was completely reformatted."

"If he was," Alexander said softly, "alive... and you had the encryption key... could you put him back to being him?"

"We don't have Heero's mind file. Duo has his mind file. It's corrupt, but it's present. Heero's gone."

"Forever," Alexander ask, feeling an overwhelming sadness without any reason he understood.

"If I kiss him again, will he die?"

"I don't know," Quatre said softly. "I suspect he might die if you don't, but it'll take longer."

"I'm Heero Yuy," Alexander said, trying to see if that felt true.

"You have his body, anyway." Quatre said. "You have a nice life, Alexander. You've been happy. Duo's life is chaotic and occasionally dangerous. His life is not professorial, if you know what I mean."

"And until the moment I kissed him," Alexander said, relieved that he was saying it out loud, "I was dead."


	9. Chapter 9

A Wrench to the Heart 9/?

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Note: OH man.. I struggled with this chapter.

The house was set fairly far back from all the other houses. It didn't really seem like a presidential mansion or any such status place, but in the context of the colony, Alexander could see how Duo's house was a place of status. While the main train line ran in and out, the line went through a couple of kilometers of forest land in both directions, all around it. The house itself kept with the slightly Victorian flair, done in blue and white, with ornate trim and wind vanes, even though no wind blue on the space station Watching from inside Duo's private car on the train, he knew he'd never seen it before, but it still felt like coming home.

"Are there no cars on this colony," Alexander asked Quatre. It was only them, Amira, and Duo in the car.

"No," Quatre said, now strong enough to roll his own chair back from the table he and Alexander. "Duo loves cars way too much not to have roads. The train lines were designed so you can't see the roads while on the train."

"Who designed this colony?" Heero asked, also rising, dropping his napkin back on the small table.

"Duo, mostly," Quatre said as the train came to a slightly rocking stop. "After The Rage, we recovered him in a life pod, along with all the other survivors. He was in a dreadful state. He didn't speak in coherent sentences for two years after he was recovered. The physical damage alone would have killed him had he not had access to care on L4. After he began to fully recover, I suggested this colony and the group home as a focus for him. It has been a wonderful success. He's raised over a hundred children that wouldn't have been a good fit anywhere else. This colony is a haven for art and science. It has launched two deep space exploration vessels."

Alexander really didn't know what to say to that. Then other staff were entering the car, transferring Duo's sleeping form to a hovering stretcher. In sleep the man looked so peaceful, beautiful, like Sleeping Beauty. He wanted so much to reach out and touch that slightly blushing cheek, those lips.

"You didn't cause his attack," Quatre said firmly. "The tumor is at war with rest of his brain. It was just bad timing."

"Bad timing," Alexander agreed, following Quatre out of the train car.

A young opened the door for them and started at Duo worriedly was he was brought in. She had dark circles under her eyes and her clothes all looked a little larger than they should be. She held out her hand to Quatre. "Welcome to Tintagel. I'm Charlotte, Duo's personal assistant."

"Yes, of course," Quatre said, "I'm Quatre Raberba Winner. The gentleman behind me is Professor Alexander Tanaka. He will be staying for a while. I'll be here for a little while. See that a room is made up for both of us."

"Yes, sir," she said, her eyes wide, her breath half held as Quatre held her hand. When he let go, slightly flustered she turned to Alexander, who looked exactly like Heero Yuy, so much so that she nearly forgot how to speak. Quatre was one thing, but someone that knew both Duo and Quatre who looked that much like Heero Yuy - It was like a Roman meeting Romulus or Remus. She reached for his hand and he shook, just a normal handshake, but she couldn't quite get air into her throat. "Professor Tanaka."

"Charlotte San," he replied politely, much more concerned with getting his hand back and dispelling any misplaced hero worship. "I look like Heero Yuy. I have often been mistaken for him."

"I see," she said, nodding like that make perfect sense. She closed the door. "School won't be out for another couple of hours. I thought Duo was coming home tomorrow."

"We made good time," Quatre said, already moving on from his conversation with her.

"Sister Maria," he greeted a woman in a rocking chair with a small baby in her arms. "I appreciate you being able to help out at such short notice."

"My pleasure," Sister Maria said sweetly. The baby in her arm, with just a touch of bright red hair, laughed and waved her little fist at Quatre. "You didn't tell me he had a newborn here though."

"That's because he doesn't," Quatre said, reaching out to tickle the baby's foot, "Does he, Julia?"

The baby's eyes focused on Quatre. Quatre glared back, blue eyes narrowing reproachfully.

When a black cat jumped down from Sister Maria's arms, she yipped so loudly it was more scream than yip. She watched as the baby, now a black cat ran and jumped onto Duo's belly, curling up and glaring back at Quatre.

Quatre motioned for the health workers to leave the cat alone. "Miss Charlotte, please show them to the elevator and up to Duo's room."

"Of course," she said motioning for them to follow her.

Alexander's mouth hung open. "What was that all about?"

"Tintagel hosts unusual children. Julia is pretty much a permanent resident, though Duo keeps telling me that her condition continues to improve. He's always been very optimistic."

The cat purred as the medical staff guided Duo's off to the elevator.

"I know you're awake," Alexander said gently. "You've been awake for ten hours, but you don't open your eyes. Why?"

Duo lay in his own bed, a monitor bracelet on his arm. His heart rate sped up a little at the sound of Alexander's voice. When Alexander ran fingers over the back of Duo's hand. "What are you afraid of?"

"That when I open my eyes, you'll be gone. I know I'm insane. I'm really sorry, Heero. I just...," Duo reached up to scrub his face. "I don't know what happened. My Heero's actually gone."

Alexander touched the tips of his fingers to Duo's lips. "So you didn't like that kiss? It was my first kiss, I think, though I guess that can't be true. I think I must have kissed you before."

Violet eyes snapped open, crossing to look at the fingertips on his lips, then snapping up to look at Alexander. "Wait," Duo said, jerking up into a sitting position and realizing he was in his own bed, his own room. "Are you really here?"

"I am."

"Do... you remember?"

"No." Alexander said, his fingers templeing, blue eyes calm. "Heidegger said that _Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one_ , but we don't really die anymore, unless we wish to. Whatever man I am, I am drawn to you, Duo. I find my being in relation to you. I wasn't alive until I kissed you. My entire life was like following a recipe that someone else selected. Please forgive me, for not remembering Heero, but please give me a chance to see who I will be."

Duo ran a hand through his mussed up hair and stared at Heero. Sitting lotus style, hands holding the back of his head, he said in a hushed voice, "You know I'm probably fucking dying, right? Fuckin' sorry about having an attack when we kissed. That was unfortunate and I fucked up your life. That was really selfish of me."

"Duo," Alexander said softly, scooting to the edge of his seat. "You're depressed. It's a lingering effect of the illness. We are not going to let you die. We're going to find or create an encryption key, completely cure you. Many people love you. I think I have loved you from before I existed. Whatever happened on The Rage, we survived. I was lost, but you never stopped looking for me. You're a little lost too, but we will learn to steer the boat together."

"No, look, Alexander... Sometimes I lose time. I'll be in one place.. And ... like I found out about you when I was camping.. Then when I woke up I was on L1. I think sometimes I kill people," Duo said, holding up his hands. He'd broken out into a cold sweat, eyes tingling with tears that he didn't want to cry. "I think I'm dangerous, Alexander."

Alexander reached out to gently run his fingers over Duo's hand, then when Duo didn't pull away, to lace their fingers together. "Did you that I can take apart and put back together more firearms than I knew existed? My hands just move through it like I've been doing it all my life. It feels as natural as brushing my teeth."

"Not surprised," Duo admitted, staring at their entwined hands. "Are you... are you staying?" Duo looked up, a tear slipping down his face.

"Yeah. I'm staying. "I believe you offered me a job."

"But.. your parents? My god, that's a strange thing to say. Are they really your parents? You remembering being a child?"

Alexander arched an eyebrow. "Mother has a collection of my baby teeth. They will be here this afternoon. You've been unconscious for two weeks, just to let you know."

"Oh that's shit." He scrubbed hard at his face. "Ty's gonna be so pissy with me. Oh god, have you been here all that time?"

"I have. Mr. Winner also hired a doctor to stay here with us and another aide to help with the children. They have all been very somber. I think they fear if you are not able to take care of them, that they will not be safe anymore."

"Wull," Duo said swinging his legs over the bed. "We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen, won't we?"

Alexander smiled, giving Duo's hand a little squeeze. "That we will."


	10. Chapter 10

A Wrench to the Heart 10/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

That conversation lasted a few minutes, and then Duo passed out again. Alexander was much more okay with this sleep though because it was more like a normal sleep with his new friend rolling and kicking at the covers. He didn't expect him to sleep too long, so he went downstairs to work on lunch. He approved of the layout of the house - with a healthy play area in the back with an obstacle course and a good track to run on, study areas on the first floor with work stations and functional laboratory for exploratory work, and even a small stage for theater and art productions. The kids said that Duo occasionally sang. The idea of Duo singing was way more erotic to him than he had any right to be thinking about as he cut up apples to feed to children that he fully expected were like his... step-children?

The hair on the back of his neck stood up and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small boy crawling down the counter towards him. "Get off the counter," Alexander said, without taking his eyes off the apples he was cutting up.

Of all the children in the home, Roy was the most mysterious to Alexander. All the rest of them had backstories and explanations. Most of them came from some space going culture that didn't want to assimilate with contemporary culture or had some kind of trauma that made them difficult to treat. Alessa had an unreasonably high IQ and had been sent to Tintagel so an educational plan could be adapted to her. Roy was more of a mystery to Alexander. His records were classified and Duo wasn't awake enough to answer questions about him.

"Get off the counter, Roy," Alexander said again.

The boy was small, with slightly green hair and unsettling silver eyes. "No."

Alexander wiped the knife off and put it back in the knife rack. "Excuse me?"

"No."

"It is not acceptable for you to be on the counter. We prepare food on the counter and it is a health concern. Please remove yourself from the counter."

"Are you gonna kill the monsters?"

"There are not such things as monsters," Alexander said in his most comforting voice.

Roy sat back, crossing his legs in the same way that Duo seemed to like to sit. Those silver eyes glared at Alexander as if he were stupid. "Well, if Daddy's sick, somebody has gotta kill the monsters."

Alexander was hesitant to reach out and move the child off the counter. The littlest girl who had been a baby when he'd first walked through the door turned into a really realistic 'face hugger' when he picked her up to bring her inside. Sister Maria had tried desperately to get the thing off, but it didn't budge until Charlie screamed Julia's name and threatened to wake Duo by force if she had to. Alexander felt justified in not touching another child at this point. "There are no monsters, Roy. There are only people. I will protect you from people."

Roy sat back, swinging his legs over the side, and sucked on his thumb for a moment. "I want an apple slice," he said around his thumb.

Alexander felt as if he were being extorted, but he didn't really mind giving the kid a slice of apple. "Yes."

He handed over a slice of apple and the kid licked it, eyed the slices in the bowl. "They're all the same size."

"Yes."

"Is it hard?" Roy asked while chewing.

"No." Alexander said, moving on to the carrots he was cutting for the stirfry that Charlie said she wanted to make for dinner.

"The monsters made me eat my brother. Can I have another apple?"

Alexander's eyebrow twitched. "I'm sorry they did that," he said, offering him another slice of apple.

"I don't think the monsters are afraid of you," Roy said judgmentally. "You're not scary."

"I'm glad," Alexander said. "I don't want to be scary, but I would like you to get off the counter please."

The boy's tongue flicked out to lick the apple and Alexander was sure he saw it was forked. He slipped from the counter and ran out the back door.

This was the island of lost toys. Alexander took a slow breath and went back to chopping carrots.

There were five pounds of carrots left to be peeled and chopped when the door was knocked upon. Irritation. There were too many people in this house. People coming. People going. People who weren't people. Carrots which weren't getting chopped and Alexander whipped his knife, put it in the rack.

The space between the kitchen and the front door was a large open sitting space, that no one ever seemed to use. Couches and chairs were spaced around the space, which seemed normal and fine to Alexander, but the slide and several swings that hung from the ceiling grated on his sense of normalcy.

He was still irritated when he got to the door and pulled it open with more force than might have been needed. There were two men on the step, both in Preventer's uniform, which set Alexander's stomach to twitching. The guy in the front had long dark hair and brown eyes. He smiled like he was coming home. "Hi," he said cheerfully as he started to move towards the open door.

Alexander blocked the space, pulling the door just narrow enough for him to stand there. "Yes."

"Uh. I'm Raine Maxwell. I've come to see my dad. Who the hell are you?"

The guy with him put a hand on Raine's shoulder while reaching into his jacket to pull out an ID. "We're with Preventers. We're not here on official business or anything. We heard Duo was sick and we wanted to come see him. He served in the Second Medical Corps in his time. We brought him a video and a card." The guy smiled calmly.

His heart hurt, literally hurt. "I'm Alexander Tanaka."

Raine wedged his way in, slipping past Alexander and smiling as Alexander glared. "Are you the new assistant?"

"No."

"So you his boyfriend then," Raine asked, dropping a backpack on the couch and bending to take off his boots. "You ain't been here long if you still wearing shoes in his house, dude."

Alexander rubbed his temple. He'd never had guests at his old house, ever. His world consisted of math, transfer orbits, and teaching arrogant people how not to die while navigating. At no point... at anyone ever bitten him on the calf. The pain in his leg drew his eyes down to his right calf where Roy was literally chomping on his leg, curled around him like some angry cat. Mouth open, he just stared.

Raine reached down and grabbed the kid by the scruff of the neck, holding him up in the air as his legs wheeled in the air. "Now, you know better than that! Dad don't let you bite folk, does he?"

Roy's definitely forked tongue flashed out, flickering in the air, and he went limp, hanging by the scruff of his neck. "HE don't believe in monsters!"

"Most folk don't," Raine said, "That ain't no cause to be biting them! I'm gonna put you down, then you're gonna go the sitting room and meditate for two full clicks. Don't you make me tell Dad on you."

"Yes, Sir," Roy said where he hung in the air. "Don't tell Dad. Please. I won't bite him no more."

"You better not bite anyone. You know it makes people sick, Roy. Now go think about what you did." He set Roy down on his feet and pointed to the hall by the kitchen. "As for you," Raine turned to Alexander. "You're going to want to go to the first aide kit, right away. If his saliva got on you, well, it can cause psychosis. I know Dad likes crazy folk, but that could still cause problems."

"Really," Alexander said, already striding towards to the first aide kit in the kitchen. "Psychosis... "

His fingers were centimeters from the activation button when he fell through the rabbit hole.

He didn't know where he was. The air smelled of oil and blood, sulfur, ozone. Floor under his feet felt shaky and hot. As the world came into focus, Duo was on a small bridge in front of him. Wind, actual wind, so they were on some planetary body, lifted that long braid and twisted it round. He was the most beautiful sight Alexander... Heero had ever seen. He was Heero Yuy.

Decades of training, bullet wounds, bruises, emotional abuse all dumped on him at once and he dropped to his knees in Duo's kitchen, five pounds of carrots still unpeeled in the sink.

In the memory, Duo went to a knee in front of him, those splendid violet eyes filled with so much love. "You have to get up, 'Ro. Just a little farther, I promise, 'kay?"

Heero had never felt so vulnerable, so lost. Not a single day in Alexander's childhood memories left him feeling so lost, so completely undone that the world had only point that made any sense. "They can't get us now," he said, and he could hear his own voice, so frail and frightened. Still adult and not dissimilar to the voice he'd always known for himself, but in that moment raw and wounded innocence of a soul completely stripped of defenses, of sense. "We're going to be okay?"

Duo smiled at him, winked. Not a smudge of soot touched that face, no red, no scrapes, even his hair which the wind tossed, was all smooth and neat. "Just a little farther, Heero. I promise, I'll never let them hurt you again. They'll never find you."

"Us," Heero said firmly. Duo motioned for him to move farther across the bridge, but each step was fire through his bones, electric in his teeth. "Us, Duo!"

Love moved him forward. Moving closer to Duo was worth whatever temporary pain his body gave him. Somehow he finished at the end of the narrow metal catwalk bridge. Duo was squatting down next to an escape pod. "Come on, Baby," he said, winking, still completely pristine, even though the very air seemed on fire, glittering bits of debris floating on the wind. "You get in first. You know I love you more than anything in the world, right?"

"Yeah," Heero said, groaning loudly as he knelt and half fell into the escape pod. "I love you too. I love you so much, Duo! I can't live without you," he said, and god, he knew... in that memory he relived all over again realizing that Duo wasn't actually there with him. "I. Can. Not. Live... Without. You."

"I know, Baby," Duo said, leaning closer to touch their lips together. The kiss felt so real, but even in the memory Heero knew it was only the memory of a memory that felt real. "You're gonna be okay. I took care of it. You're gonna be happy and safe."

"Where are you? I'll find you!" Heero said, desperate, but unable to fight against the pod as it sedated him, applying medical care, easing his pain, pulling him into the sleep that would keep him until rescue.

"Baby," Duo said softly, fingers brushing over Heero's lips. "I love you. I'm on The Rage, but I'm as good as dead. I'm hamburger. I can't get in a pod. I'm done. Sleep, Sweetie, just sleep. When you wake up, everything will be okay."

The pod closed, cutting through the simulation that was Duo. The last bits of simulation glowed and scattered like a soul dispersing.

"Hey," Duo said.

Heero opened his eyes. They both lay on the kitchen floor. The rest of the crew was working on dinner. The scent of beef roast and fresh bread filled the kitchen. Duo looked good, refreshed, color in his cheeks, soft rosy lips. Heero reached up to brush chocolate bangs back, to feel that silky splendid hair. "I love you."

Duo blinked, slow, lips parting. For a moment held his lower lip between his teeth. "Heero?"

"Yes."

Charlie leaned over them both, hands on her hips. "Good. Get off my floor. We're making dinner here."


	11. Chapter 11

A Wrench to the Heart 11/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

"Hey, Heero," Duo greeted him without looking up from the corner he was staring at. " ."

A soft blue light came on as Heero let himself into Duo's bedroom. The room had a completely different feel when Duo was awake than when he'd been unconscious. The walls all seemed endless now. The Milky Way stretching all the way around the room. The only reason Heero knew Duo was staring at a corner was from having been in the room before. "How did you know it was me?"

"Charlie knocks and everyone else is loud as fuck," Duo said, turning to smile over his shoulder. His hair was unbound, flowing over his back, but when he turned, Heero could see bare shoulder, muscular and defined. In the pale light, his hair looked golden yet somehow dark as wine. The blue softened the color of Duo's eyes too, making them blue and Heero's heart froze for a moment as his mind was unable to process how beautiful Duo was. "Why ya lookin at me like that?"

"You're beautiful." Heero grabbed the chair that Alexander had been sitting in and carried it closer to Duo before sitting down. At some point since dinner, Heero had found a pair of gray sweatpants and one of Duo's old gray Preventer's tee-shirts that read 'Med Corps' across the front. He rested his elbows on the chair's arms, laced his fingers together, and stared with an intensity that made Duo blush. "I woke up this morning thinking I'd ask you to marry me after we went to the buffet."

"I don't remember," Duo said. He seemed to pull a kitchen chair out of the wall, spun it around and sat down, arms folded over the back. "We we happy? My head is so full of holes, 'Ro. I don't think about it most of the time. I take care of the kids and I paint. I think about finding you. I'm never really going to find you, am I?"

"I'm right here," Heero said firmly, gently. "Don't you see me?"

"Sure, I do, Heero. I've seen you a thousand times before and you were never really there. When I sleep, the system rebuilds me as much as it can, and I'm always okay in the morning. Sometimes I lose time and then I feel really good for a few days, but you were living as Alexander and you're safe and you're happy, right?"

"I was living as Alexander and I was safe, but I am happier now," Heero said. He non-threateningly scooted his chair closer and reached for Duo's hand. He rubbed the back of his hand with his thumbs, focusing on that for the space of a couple of breaths. "You risked your life to save mine. You created Alexander. There is no love greater than what connects you and I."

"Wow, Heero, that's too deep for me today. My head still kinda hurts," Duo admitted.

"I understand. Please close your eyes for me. I'll make the pain go away," Heero said smiling sadly.

Duo closed his eyes. "I don't think this is going to help, but you can keep holding my hand," Duo said, smiling flirty like.

"I'll keep holding your hand," Heero promised. "I'll hold you all night, like I used to."

"Really? And you'll be there in the morning?"

"I will," Heero promised, right before he stabbed a long acupuncture needle into Duo's hand. Duo yipped, but Heero held onto his hand.

When those eyes opened, they were dark as twilight. "Heero Yuy."

"Yes. Hello, Shinigami. How have you been maintaining Duo's neurological health?"

Shini pulled the needle out slowly, trailed dark red blood over his hand, drawing a dark line up his wrist. "I've been fucking Sung Chang and he gives me a very painful medical treatment. It works, but it works less well with each treatment. If I ever call out your name when I cum again, I am pretty sure he's going to straight up murder me." Shini winked, flicked the tip of his tongue against the corner of his mouth. "Also... We're dying. Where the hell have you been?" While he spoke, he moved from the chair Duo had been straddling to worm on to Heero's lap. The black silk pajama bottoms did nothing to shield Heero from Shinigami's enthusiasm. The long caramel hair fanned around Heero's knees. "Sung's going to be pissed that the moment I found you, I ran straight for you. I thought Alexander might like Duo better than me. It seems to have worked out well."

Heero ran his fingers into Shini's free flowing hair and pulled him into a kiss. The kiss was familiar and fierce, helium ignition in to hydrogen, the two of them merging greater than either alone. Shinigami tucked his feet under Heero's thighs and buried his fingers into Heero's short spiky hair. The time they'd been apart had no meaning. What they'd done to survive in the meantime had no meaning. The time apart was the desert, but kisses were rain, touch-to-touch, lips and tongue, teeth, biting and taste, an urgency that felt insatiable, as if they would disappear when the kiss ended.

As the kiss slowed, Shinigami passed his lips slowly back and forth over Heero's feeling the wet, the warmth, texture. "He needs to kiss you too." Shinigami snuggled closer, a hand cupping Heero's face. "So.. until this moment, I thought I was the real one. I thought I made separate choices. It's not true. He's my core being. You're here now. He doesn't need me anymore."

Heero frowned. One hand on either side of Shinigami's head, loving, gentle, he kissed him again. "I love you. I will take care of all of you. You are part of Duo and you are important."

Shinigami drew Heero's fingers to his lips, tracing those strong fingers over smooth lips. "It seems so obvious right now. I'm just him. We're dying, so all the days that are left, I just want to be me," Duo said, one eye dark, one eye light. "And God, that makes no sense. My head still hurts too, Heero and I am so sitting on your lap with a hardon too, just saying." Duo blushed brightly.

Heero kept his touch gentle, soothing as he caressed through Duo's hair. "I could take care of that for you," Heero offered, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Duo squirmed, bare feet rubbing against Heero's thighs. "Do I get to give as good as I get?"

"Yes." Heero said, standing and bringing Duo with him. Duo wrapped his arms around Heero's waist while nuzzling Heero's neck. "I like that."

"And this," Duo asked as he gently held Heero's ear between his teeth, "do you like this too?"

"Yes," Heero groaned, one knee on Duo's bed as he carried him, "do that. Don't stop."

"Never," Duo agreed, looking up at Heero, fingers brushing over his hair. "I'll never stop, not till I die."

"I'm not going to let you die," Heero said. And they kissed again, like there could never be enough.


	12. Chapter 12

A Wrench to the Heart 12/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Morning brought sunlight through the windows that hadn't even been visible the night before. Duo rolled over on his stomach and pulled back onto his elbows. Nothing hurt. He had to think about that for a moment. As he thought about it, nothing started to hurt. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out. Nope. Still nothing hurt.

Violet eyes looked to the side, to find Heero Yuy curled up on his bed, the sunlight making a halo behind dark hair, and he remembered everything they did the night before, from the point that he had somehow gotten into Heero's lap to when their bodies joined for a second time in such a short time. Fuck. He grinned wildly. Sex with Heero was wildly better than sex by himself. Heero was the cure. THE CURE for everything, and he felt in that moment that he was never going to forget anything ever again, never going to lose time, never feel like dying would be the best outcome, and God, he was hungry. Ravenous!

He jerked up to his knees, rolling back onto his ass, still grinning like a maniac. He studied Heero's form, still sleeping under the light covers. One hand rubbed his mouth, violet eyes staring at Heero. His fingers rubbed over the stubble that would be a moustache if he didn't shave soon. This was the outcome he always knew he'd get to, but had somehow given up hope of ever getting to. Somehow it shattered reality though and he found his own normal life to be far away, faded and thin.

It had been a week and a half since he'd dropped Ty off at The Center. He held his upper lip between his teeth for a moment as he tried to think of some good way to make that okay. So much for promises of visiting everyday. At least it had only been a week, give or take, two weeks tops, given the trip to L1, and back, two and a half weeks, for sure, no more. He bounced off the bed, rubbed at a bit of dried evidence on his leg, grinned like a full moon and half ran off to the bathroom. God! He felt good. "Galen! Have breakfast sent up to my room, eggs, bacon, pancakes, rice, tea, and god, send up some Coke."

Galen appeared as a translucent figure, wearing a toga and carrying a stylus and what might have been a wax tablet. "Anything else? Your white blood cell count is healthier today. Memory should be stronger. Perhaps you could spend some time in the gym?"

"That'd be good. Have reports on all the kids' school work updated for me. I want to do burgers for dinner and cake. Tell the house to get that ready. Do I have any urgent messages?"

"The City Council would like to remind you that tomorrow is your in office day. Visa applications for Alexander's parents are pending. There are five urgent messages from Chang Sung that require a password to open that is not included in your keychain."

"Who is Chang Sung?" Duo asked as he started the shower, glanced back at Heero, felt all glowy and happy.

"He is the great grandchild of Chang Wufei. He was a respected medical researcher in neuroscience and epigenetic expression, but was disgraced fifty years ago due to involvement in unethical and dangerous experimentation on unwilling human subjects."

"Why the hell is he messaging me?" Duo asked, fingers flying through his braid to get it all undone.

"I don't know. As I stated," Galen said, slightly irritated, "the messages require a password that I do not have. They are both encrypted and locked."

"Datso? Great. Reply asking for unencrypted messages," Duo said. "Tell the Council I'll be there. Approve the visas for Alexander's parents, arrange transportation for them. You're the bomb, Galen."

"As you wish," Galen said, before making the hand gesture that indicated his departure.

Heero was still sleeping soundly when Duo finished eating, so he left the food so it would stay warm for Heero when he woke. He felt like he was walking on clouds as slipped out of the room. Heero Yuy was sleeping in his bed. The world was perfect! He closed the door as quietly as he could.

"You!" Charlie said, pointing a finger at him. "I want to know what's going on? I'm the assistant, not the primary caregiver." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not sure that uncommitted sex is a good example to set for the kids." She tilted her head, eyebrows rising accusingly.

"Wullnow," Duo said holding up both hands. "Heero's not really uncommitted. You don't get much more committed than we are."

Julia appeared then, hiding behind Charlie's leg, her eyes big and sad. Duo pointed his finger at her, "Oh stop that! I have a right to lock my door at night."

Her lower lip quivered.

Duo straightened up, his own arms across his chest. "You all are just gonna hav'ta get used to it. Heero isn't leaving. I love him. Do you understand? He's not going anywhere."

Julia's arm shifted, becoming unfinished gundaniam, taking on claws - a little like Shenlong, a little like some weird Freddy Krueger gundam. Her now knife like fingers squeaked ominously as she flexed them.

"Oh, datso," Duo said, violet eyes narrowing. He unfurled his arms like they were wings, coalescing the same little nanobots that made up Julia's body to himself. He cloaked himself in a human form of Deathscythe. "Ima get ya now!"

Julia squaled and ran for the stairs. Charlie pressed herself to the wall, eyes wide, her soul about to float to the surface because she was so out of her depth again. Duo shook the house as he ran after her. She slide down the banister and he jumped over the edge, arms out to catch her when she got to the bottom, but he let her dodge and dive behind the couch in the central sitting room.

He roared like what he imagined a bear sounded like, stomped heavily around. She giggled and ran towards the fancy sitting room. He imagined black wings snapping out, great black bat wings that cast a shadow over her as he finally wrapped his arms around her, lifting her giggling and kicking form off the ground.

About then he noticed the very pretty Chinese man sitting on one of the Queen Ann style chairs sipping tea from British style china. The man wore a rich blue Chinese coat thing with knots silver embroidery. His pants were baggy and of the same beautiful blue silk. Black silk slippers covered his feet. He stared at them, his pinky out as he sipped his tea. His hair was done in dozens of tiny braids, each with a glowing little lightning bug kinda thing at the end. Several of them tracked Duo like creepy little Medusa snake heads.

Duo dropped his costume and stood there with Julia hanging from his arms, her one hand still clicking as she moved her long metal blade fingers. "Who the hell are you and how did you get into mah house?"

Sung sat his tea down, leaned forward, fingers templing just like his grandfather might have. "I am Chang Sung and I have a key, of course. I need to speak with Shinigami, if you don't mind, Dr. Maxwell."

"Yeah," Duo said, setting Julia down. "Go up to your room, Julia. I'll come for you in a few minutes."

She glared, pouty and stubborn, then glared at the stranger. Sung waved back at her. She stomped off. Once she was out of the room, Duo put his hands on his hips and got right to the point, "I haven't heard that name since the wars. Is this something to do with the wars?"

Sung sidestepped and after a sip of tea, he asked, "I understand Yuy's back. He's always had such a poor affect on you."

"Okay, dude, I don't know you and I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Don't be sending me anymore encrypted messages either. Your granddad was my buddy in the wars, but we really haven't stayed real close. How did you even get on this colony? Galen tells me you don't have a visa or a citizenship."

"What a lovely little chatbot you are," Sung nearly sang. He sat down the cup and stood. His elegant motion projected as non-threatening, yet carried very threatening energy. "This is a matter of urgency. I need to speak to Shinigami."

Sung was across the room then, with Duo moving back as quickly as he could and falling into another chair, which tipped backwards only to be stopped and brought back with one of Sung's black silk slippered feet hitting between Duo's legs. Light glinted from a small silver blade. "I regret the pain I am about to cause you," Sung said politely, even as Duo was trying to go up and back over the chair.

A pistol safety clicked off and Charlie spoke calmly. "I will shoot you in the head if you do not back away from him immediately." She held the pistol expertly in both hands, calm and steady, showing every sign of being very capable of splattering Sung's brains over the fancy sitting room. "Hands up. Release the weapon."

"Oh little girl," Sung said, straightening up, hands held up and wide, though he didn't back any farther away and used his foot on the chair Duo was in to push it over just enough to keep Duo unbalanced with his own feet off the ground. "Don't make me hurt you."

"I was a Preventer field agent. I know who you are and the only reason you're not dead is my employer asked me not to kill you."

"How kind of you," Sung snarled at Duo, slender fingers dropping the blade. "We're not done here."

Duo swallowed, face pale.

"Indeed, we are not," Quatre said, his voice sounding young and strong again. He stood tall and strong, looking no older than twenty-five. He wore a dark suit, a dark blue tie that matched his eyes. Behind him two solidly built Maganacs, both with very seriously looking rifles pointed at Sung. "Sung. Duo is her boss, but I am her employer."

"Uncle," Sung said, smiling, looking much more polite now as he set Duo's chair back down on all four legs. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Chang Sung, you are a bane upon my soul," Quatre said. "Please keep your hands raised. It would be unfortunate if one of my men were to make a mess in Duo's livingroom."

"One must have priorities," Chang said, backing away from Duo now. "I will never abandon him. You don't frighten me, Uncle."

Quatre smirked, adjusting a cufflink as he positioned himself between Duo and Sung. "Clearly, you're stupid as well as morally challenged. Duo is not now, has never been, nor ever will be your lover, Sung. We are greatly looking forward to finding out everything you know about his illness though."

Duo leaned around Quatre just enough so that Sung could see his face. "Yeah! What he said."

The expression that fluttered over Sung's face made Duo's stomach go cold. "You're nothing more than a chat bot and I look forward to deleting you."

"That's a pretty nasty thing to say," Duo said. "You're not as nice as your grandfather."

"Were you fucking him too," Sung asked, eyes flashing.

"Well, now that you ask, yeah, once or twice. I don't remember fucking you though."

"You're a whore," Sung snarled. "You're not fit to wear his body."

"Can I shoot him now," Charlie asked angrily.

"Only if he moves," Quatre said. "As a heliosphere deputy, I hereby place you under arrest, Chang Sung. Attempts to resist will be met with lethal force."

"Uncle," Sung said, eyes narrow while he drew up his hand to blow Duo a kiss. "You have always thought too highly of your abilities and being old hasn't made you faster."

And with that Sung was gone, disappeared into the data structure that supported the colony.


	13. Chapter 13

A Wrench to the Heart 13/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Warning: Okay... so on this chapter I had planned a fight, a lemon - I got to none of them. Next chapter Duo's gonna visit Ty, have a flashback, and maybe there will be that lemon!

"What the living fuck," Duo hissed, hands raising in emphasis, "was that all about? And Q? Fifty fucking years of 'Ima gonna grow old'an die cuz I wanna be with Allah' and now you're stridin up in here like a sheriff in Armani?" He spun on Charlotte, pointing accusingly, "You didn't put that Preventer shit on yer resume!"

She clicked the safety on her weapon and gave him a look like she was expecting a raise.

Quatre sniffed the tea pot, set the lid back, tugged at his cuff and turned to Duo with an amused smirk. "I have, most definitely, spoken in such a manner in my life. Heero and I went adventuring last night and I had a change of heart. Far be it from me to run Allah's business. If he wishes to call me home, I shall be happy to go, but in the meantime, I have tasks here which need attending to. Duo, I never believed you about Heero. I was wrong. I'm very sorry. Will you please forgive me?"

"Fuck, Q. There's nothing to forgive. I didn't always believe me either. What did you and Heero do last night?" He asked suspiciously.

"Miss Charlotte, would you please fetch some fresh tea for Duo and me? I would really like some danish as well."

Charlotte gave him a long expression - the kind of expression that says you get that you're not getting a raise, but your job description has also been altered and not for the better. There was going to be medical school. Yes. Yes, there was. "Of course."

"Thanks, Charlie," Duo said apologetically. "Wanna check on Julia too?"

For a very small moment there was a look like there wasn't enough money in the heliosphere to make a big enough raise. "Yeah, Duo. If something is going on here though, I have a right to know what it is. My job description does not include confronting mad scientists in the livingroom."

Duo listened intently as she spoke, his hands sliding up the sides of his head, fingers pushing brown hair up so it was almost like little cat ears, which he then wiggled with his fingers while smiling playfully. "This house is full of mad scientists. Have you seen Kay's homework?"

She held her breath for a moment then laughed. "You're insane."

"So they keep telling me. You're pretty handy. Wanna extend yer contract for an extra year?"

"Nope. I'll get that tea."

Quatre sat down near Duo, pulling his chair closer. "Use the Moroccan granite method."

"That takes twenty minutes," Charlotte snapped.

Comfortable in his chair, Quatre tapped his fingers one after the other on the arm, "Yes. I know."

She threw her hands up over her head as she walked away.

When she was out of the room, Quatre dropped a privacy circle on the floor and when it was large enough to encompass them, he activated it. "As you know, I have companies working with many cutting edge processes. Using information from Heero's recovered memories, we were better able to triangulate both the location of The Rage and your location. We need a copy of your mind file in order to restore neural integrity to your mind. You are very resistant to going to a younger mind file."

"Q," Duo said patiently, "Mindfiles are in the past. Unless your folk cooked up a fukin TARDIS, there is no mindfile to fix me. I'm going to die. It's just a matter of time. I'm a greedy shit. I should have left Heero being happy as Alexander."

"Nonsense. Heero is much happier as Heero and here with you. As it happens though, I do have the ability to do time travel."

"Oh yer shitin' me!" Duo said, scooting forward until he was on the edge of his chair. "Really? I wanna go look for Jesus!"

"That is incredibly risky and frivolous and no, you can not go back in time to look for Jesus. Heero and I went to get your mind file from The Rage. We were successful."

"Let's fix me then!" Duo said, arms over his head, fingers wiggling.

"Yeah. About that," Quatre said softly. "While we know that we succeeded. We don't know where we secured the mindfile."

"Wait." Duo said, eyes narrowing. "You and Heero did this super risky thing to get something you need to save my life, getting you both killed in the process, so both of you respawned - in my house - without even telling me you were doing something that dangerous, and while you completed your mission and got the thing I need to not - you know - fucking die, but you don't know where you put it?"

Quatre tilted his head, nodded appreciatively. "Yes. Exactly."

Duo leaned back in the queen anne chair, scratched his ear. "So.. how does the time travel thingy work, exactly?"

"I am never telling you that, ever. I will not have you trying to rescue every waif in all of history."

Duo wrinkled his nose. "It's not like I can't figure it out on my own. I'm glad you respawned. Are you going to be here long enough to race a bit, do some fun stuff?"

Quatre pressed two fingers to his temple and sighed. "You are Peter Pan. I've been gone from my office for more than a week, counting the trip to L1 and back. What kind of car do you have that I could race?"

"I'll let you use the Camero," Duo offered, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Really," Quatre replied. "Well, maybe another day or so. Heero hasn't had a chance to see the raceway yet."

"No, he hasn't," Duo said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"What raceway," Charlotte asked as she wheeled in a cart with tea and pastries.

Duo quickly picked up a pastry and had some in his mouth when he answered, "Uh, I built a raceway, for cars, cars with combustion engines." He swallowed, smiled sweetly, "It's pretty cool." He grinned extra, kinda defensive as she glared.

"Do you mean ... cars that burn fossil fuel?"

"Yeah," Duo said, chewing, "I got a Mustang that I kitted out to run on jet fuel!"

"That's dangerous," she snarled, "and illegal! Fossil fuels were banned for reasons!"

"What reasons," Duo challenged as he made himself a tea. "Come on, tell me."

"They're bad for the air! They're explosive! They're rare and difficult to get! Wars were fought over them. Oh and they're explosive. We're on a space colony. Did I mention they're EXPLOSIVE?"

"You, clearly, haven't driven one," Duo said, using Quatre's fancier dialect.

"Mr. Winner! Tell him!" Charlotte looked entirely distressed. The dead do not go to medical school.

"Calm down," Quatre said, making patting motion with his hand. "The raceway can easily contain full nuclear explosions. We had a full Gundam battle in there before we moved any colonists in. It's solid as the sun."

She rubbed her temples firmly, taking a deep breath. There might have been some adrenalin left over from trying to arrest one of the top ten wanted men in the heliosphere. "Now let's be clear, and I don't mean to put my employment in any kind of actual jeopardy, but you can't have had a battle with actual Gundams. They were destroyed after the wars and the only people who could have really piloted those machines are the five saints. They're all dead. I have personally been to Emperor Chang's mausoleum and viewed his body."

"Oh that's gross," Duo said, wrinkling his nose. "Did Wu-boy agree to that," he asked Quatre.

"Apparently," Quatre said, sipping his tea. "So, if I understand you, Ms. Charlotte, you sound like you don't think that Duo is the Duo Maxwell nor that I am also one of the five war pilots."

"How can you be? The wars were a couple hundred years ago. Serious life extension wasn't even available then. Even now it takes nearly a lifetime of preparation embrace the Long Path. Duo's only forty-five and it's just not reasonable that you are THE Quatre Winner. I'm sure the name is popular in your family."

"I bet you think the 'real' Duo was taller," Duo said, tucking his still bare feet up under his knees.

"I don't mean to hurt your feelings," Charlotte said softly, "But you are a little short."

"Come on, I'm 5'5". There were nutritional deficiencies in my childhood."

"See? The Five Saints were all engineered to be perfect pilots. You know the stories. We all learned them in elementary school."

"Really," Duo asked, grimacing. He glared at Quatre.

Quatre shrugged. "It was Trowa's idea. It has kept people from actually looking for us."

"Great," Duo deadpanned. "Galen! Give me a copy of a textbook with the story of the Five Saints."

Galen walked out of the wall hands on a book that was still manifesting. "You do realize I have important work to do, do you not?"

Quatre sighed. "Why do you let him talk to you like that? My computer is still strutting around claiming to be Pikachu. I really do blame you for that."

"Never mind that," Duo said opening up the book, "Look at this shit! It says I'm six foot two with one blue eye and one purple eye and that I'm a girl. This book says I'm a girl. Galen! Is this a legit textbook."

Charlotte leaned over it, smiling with nostalgia. "Yeah. Looks just like the one I had in school. I forgot about Duo being a girl. She was never my favorite. I always dreamed about Saint Yuy."

"That's funny," Heero said from the doorway. He wore Duo's old grey Preventer's workout gear, his hair wet from a shower, blue eyes smirking with amusement. "The most surreal thing is that I remember reading that book as a child, as Alexander, but I know I didn't. Duo was always my favorite." He winked.

Duo blushed, swallowed. "I still don't like this. It's all a lie. I don't like lies."

"Do you want media people from Earth on your doorstep every other day? You got bug nuts crazy that year they showed up here on Heero Yuy Day a few years ago. If I remember, that's why you go camping every year. Don't second guess Trowa's work. No one is better at camoflauge than he is."

Charlotte sank down to the floor, her hands in her hair, staring up at the three of them as heero leaned to kiss Duo's neck and Quatre sipped tea, cool as fresh ice cream in July. All of them were smaller than she would have expected, but as she thought about it, that actually made some kind of sense. All of Duo's behaviors... My god... it made sense. If anyone was going to have access to life extension it would be the Winner family and gods knew they were well disposed to Duo Maxwell, her boss, who god, it all made so much sense that she felt like a complete idiot for not seeing it sooner. "I really want a raise."

"I'll include support during your residency period, on condition that you sign binding non-disclosure agreements," Quatre offered.

"I'll let you practice on Camelot," Duo said smiling, leaning back into Heero's touch. "I'll let you drive my Mustang! Once."

"The one that runs on jet fuel," she asked as if he'd offered her cyanide.

"Yeah."

"I'm very excited about medical school," Charlotte said firmly. "I'm going to be a fantastic doctor."


	14. Chapter 14

A Wrench to the Heart 14/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. It's just my safe space where I'm hiding.

Duo didn't have perfectly clear memories of the day Ty had showed up in the backyard. He remembered getting into the car. He remembered waking up feeling really good. Something - clearly - had happened in between. He did, mostly, remember promising to visit every day. So he was a few days behind on that promise.

He couldn't say he really had fond memories of The Center anyway. So he sat there in front of it, feeling memories coming back - memories he didn't want. What he wanted was a novo sucker, to lick it and roll it in his mouth, as the world turned lovely and sweet and all the fear would go away, as if he'd never felt it at all.

The flashback slipped around him like water closing over his head while sinking. He squatted in some alley. The gravity felt heavy, Earth gravity, or L1, but L1 had never been this dirty, his hair matted, a tangled braided dreadlock he petted in the darkness. Heero was dead. Dead. But Death hadn't come for him. Again. It never came for him, because he was death. He brought death like the void brought cold.

Then he wasn't alone. The man kneeling in front of him was so beautiful. Much more delicate than Heero, and his skin was darker, his eyes a dark brown rather than blue. There was something familiar about the man, like they'd know each other, like they were closer than friends. Duo remembered pulling back in that moment and he pulled back where he sat in his mustang, belly pulling back to his spine.

"Here," the man said, offering Duo a blue sucker, "Just put it in your mouth. It'll make you feel much better. I promise."

The man had been Sung Chang. He'd been right. That candy had made Duo feel much better. Novo'll do that to ya, but it's a very expensive better.

Almost fifty years later, after being clean for forty years, the sudden craving was enough to make throwing his whole life away seem worth the price. After all, how long did he really have? They weren't going to get an uncorrupted mind file. He was going to continue to have seizures and lose a little more of his mind each time. Novo offered bliss and car racing... Then Heero could go back to Alexander and be safe. The idiot wouldn't be risking his life to save a life that was mostly gone anyway.

A knock on his window caught him and he nearly jumped in his seat. Heero waved. He was on one of Duo's motorcycles, black helmet on, visor lifted.

Duo waved back, feeling sheepish for the thought's he'd just been harboring. He wanted to be so much better for Heero, so much stronger, healthier. He didn't deserve to be loved like this.

Heero motioned for him to roll down his window, which he did. "Hey. You didn't have to come."

"You didn't say I couldn't," Heero countered.

"You shouldn't have risked your life last night," Duo said, suddenly angry as hell that Heero had done that without even telling him. "You have no fucking idea what you being dead did to me!"

"Yes. I do," Heero said forcefully. "Yesterday I remembered you saving my life and telling me that you were dying, that you'd take care of everything for me. You created Alexander because you knew I couldn't live without you. Last night, Quatre and I used time travel for the first time, as far as I know. We saved your life. If we hadn't done that, your entire life since The Rage is gone. All the kids you've helped, everything. When we found you, you had more bullet wounds than I counted, had had two strokes, a heart attack, serious burns and abrasions over 40% of your body. You described yourself as hamburger and you weren't wrong. When Quatre and I picked you up to move you, you screamed in pain for the whole trip to the life pod. I am never going to forget that. So today, and for the next few days, you're going to live with me tagging around after you. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah," Duo said, deflated of his anger, but washed out, like all the internal structures holding him up had become a house of cards. "I... I'm sorry."

Heero set the helmet on the magnetic rack in the back then leaned into Duo's window, giving him a gentle kiss. "I love you. Love is a great mystery, but in you I find all that is valuable in life. Will you marry me?"

"Woah.. you mean like more than we already are?"

"I have all my memories," Heero said as he tugged on one of Duo's bangs. "We have been friends. We have been lovers. We have lived together. I was going to ask on The Rage. I never got the chance. Will you marry me, Duo Maxwell?"

"Yeah," Duo said, coming up out of the window, hands moving into Heero's hair.

Heero wrapped his arms around him and pulled him the rest of the way out of the window and onto the black motorcycle in front of him. The kiss sent shivers through Duo, but Heero held him, biting gently, tongues touching. Duo shifted around, straddling the motorcycle backwards, thighs pressing to Heero's waist. "The bike has insta shell. Take me around my loop, fast, please, then we'll go in and see Tyla."

"Hn," Heero agreed. The bike rumbled to life. Heero revved it hard, making it growl like a monster. Duo snuggled against him, face hidden against Heero's neck. Heero held the bike in check as it reeved and when he released it, the front wheel lifted off the ground for a moment. Duo's loop was used by other people as well, but infrequently. Most people used the train or the public loop. The colony's AI which was related to Galen, kept all other traffic out of their way when Heero roared onto it. Due to the slightly lower gravity on the colony, the ideal road conditions, and Duo's insane engineering, the bike was faster than any bike should be. Near the completed circuit of the colony, they broke the speed of sound. Both the bike and the enclosed roadway generated a shield around them that protected them from unpleasant temperatures and friction. There was the pull, the speed, increased (but not uncomfortable) G force.

As Heero decelerated, slowly bringing them back off at the same exit they'd entered. The loop only went in one direction, so there was only one portal at each exit. They rolled up to The Center with the same direction they'd had previously.

"Better," Heero asked.

"You're perfect," Duo said softly, kissing Heero's cheek. "Still wanna marry me?"

"Yes. We should do it while my parents are here."

"Does it really feel like they are your parents?"

"Yeah. I don't know how you found them or how you did it, but when I run their genetics and mine, there is a 95% likelihood that they are both my actual parents. For a man who doesn't like lies, you did a really good job with that one."

"I don't know what happened, but I don't know that I'm capable of doing all that. These days just not fucking my life over sideways is about all I can manage."

Heero powered the bike down behind Duo's car, scritched the back of Duo's neck. "Things are going to get better. We will find the uncorrupted mind file. We will enjoy the hell out of being alive for a very long time."

"That is the best plan I have ever heard," Duo said. "You gonna wear white in our wedding?"

"If it would make you smile," Heero said, tugging Duo's braid. "You came here because one of your kids has an addiction problem?"

"Yeah. Novo is some shit. I'm never going to be really free of it." Duo said, his thumb brushing over Heero's lower lip. "Sometimes I want it so bad... there's no me left, only just wanting that damn shit."

"There isn't any of it on Camelot, is there?"

"No. It's not allowed," Duo said, climbing down from the motorcycle.

"And yet you have The Center which treats Novo addiction," Heero asked, curious. "What substance was Tyla using?"

"Novo," Duo said, frowning, before he shook his head, letting go of the question.

"Where did she get it," Heero asked.

Duo felt a sharp pain in his head, right behind his eyes, which darkened. "Don't ask, don't tell," Shinigami hissed.

"That's interesting," Heero said.

"What is," Duo asked, rubbing his arms, feeling suddenly chill. "I think maybe we should do stew for dinner, with biscuits. What do you think?"

"I think you're an accomplished engineer and a solidly passable medical doctor. You should let Charlotte and the house AI do the cooking." Heero said, keeping a straight face as he hooked an arm around Duo's arm.

"Ouch," Duo said, laying his head on Heero's shoulder. "My food hasn't poisoned you yet."

"Not since that one time when we were 15."

"I had limited resources and no net access. How was I to know it would make us sick, slightly sick?"

"Duo, you cooked a road kill skunk."

"You ate it."

"I was hungry," Heero admitted, "At least I wasn't hungry for a few days afterwards."

"There are no skunks on Camelot," Duo said, but then, just as they walked under the arch and into The Center's grounds, "They're kinda cute. I should put some."

"No thank you," Heero said, brushing a bit of bang back out of Duo's face. "How about some racoons? We could download into little bandit bodies and knock over trash cans."

"No trash cans on Camelot, but we could make our eyes glow and look in folk's windows."

"Someone would shoot us."

"Possibly. Probably. Might still be fun."

"Hn," Heero agreed, and then the door opened and a nice person, gender not easy to tag, but the person was wearing a Catholic sister's black and white garb, so Heero decided sister would be okay. "Hello, Sister. We've come to visit Tyla..."

"Tyla Maxwell," Duo added. "And I could stand to stand in the light for a few minutes, myself."

"Welcome, my children," she said. "Come into the light. All are welcome here."

Duo leaned close and whispered, "The light is also a little bad for some kinds of cognition."

"Really," Heero hissed, wrapping his arm around Duo's shoulders, pulling him close.

They were shown to Ty's room and she stood on a soothing blue light circle. A lovely chandelier hung above her, sending glittering fractured blue light down over her. She stood on it, wearing a yellow robe that draped around her, a little like an old fashioned Buddhist monk.

"Hey," Duo said, loud enough to get her attention.

Her eyes fluttered open. Confusion clouded her face for a moment then she was flying into his arms. "Dad! I'm so glad to see you! Where have you been? I was afraid Dash killed you!"

He rubbed her back, patted her head. "I ain't gone ta see'im yet. No worries."

"Then where ya been," she snapped, accusing, pulling back, arms across her chest. "You said you'd visit me everyday, Dad! Who's this sucker? You got a new boyfriend?"

Duo grinned brightly, smiled at Heero.

All the irritation Heero had been feeling with this girl disappeared when Duo smiled at him.

"So this is Heero Yuy. He's moving in. We gonna get married." Duo shoved his hands into his back pockets, rocked onto the balls of his feet and back. "Maybe you'll be well enough to come."

"Uh," she said. "Dad, you know he's not really Heero Yuy, right?"

"Now, I know it's a bit of a shock," Duo said, hands up kind of defensively. "I've been single for a long time."

"You're not single," Ty snapped. "What did you tell Sung?"

"Wuulll," Duo said, fighting off the pain in his head.

"Duo," Heero said gently. "I thought I saw you put a gift basket in the car when you left. Why don't you go get it and give Tyla and I a moment to get acquainted," he asked with authority in his voice, smiling and kind, but not really making it a question.

"Yeah, okay," Duo said, brow furrowed, lips thin and twisted. "I did put a gift basket in the car. I'll be right back."

As soon as Duo was far enough away, Tyla turned on Heero, nose wrinkling. "You better run, you fucking pretender. Sung'll make mince out of you, just like he did the real Heero Yuy. He showed me the real one's body once. So I know you're not the real one."

"Perhaps I'm not the original," Heero allowed, and given that he'd re-spawned less than twelve hours before, he knew he wasn't the original, "but a man is the kah not the coat. I will also tell you this," he said in words cold enough to dim the sun, "That if you do not speak kindly to Duo, with love and gentleness, I will make sure that you regret your existence, and do not wish to live. There is a great deal of difference between wishing for death and wishing for Nirvanah the way you'll wish if I chose to make it so. He has done nothing to harm you, only to help you. You are an adult now, so your problems are of your own fruit."

"You think you're a badass, but I'm telling you, Sung will kill you. Shinigami is his," Ty said, face pale, clearly afraid of both Heero and Sung now.

"No one owns anyone else," Heero said firmly. "I am Heero Yuy and I have brought down whole armies. I think I can deal with one asshole. You will speak more nicely to your dad going forward, will you not?"

"Yup," she agreed.

"How do I find Sung Chang," he asked, smiling politely.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ty said softly. "He'll come for you."


	15. Chapter 15

A Wrench to the Heart 15/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

"Mayor Maxwell! You're here!" Megs exclaimed, jumping up from her desk. "I heard you weren't feeling well and might not be in this month. Are you okay?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. How many consults do I have this afternoon?"

"Only three, but there are seventeen visa applications."

"Great," Duo said, making a face. "Make sure the Tanakas are on the top."

"Why," she asked. "They're file didn't seem... exceptional. They've never even been off Earth before and they don't have any specials skills."

Duo pointed to Heero who was following him and had been unexplainedly sulky since visiting Ty. "They're his parents. They're going to be citizens if they want. Him too. Get me his visa application. We're getting married. Can you please find me a wedding planner, in house. I don't want any more externals than needed."

"Married? You're getting married? Duo! Can I plan it? Please?" She jumped around, grabbing his hand dancing and he gave in and danced with her, spinning her and giving her a dip before setting her on her feet. "Please? I'm so happy for you."

"Yeah, Megs. Fine. You can plan the wedding. No media. Everyone in Camelot is invited."

"Everyone?" Heero asked.

"Yeah. I don't wanna leave anyone out. We'll have a big ass barbeque." Duo pulled a large glass tablet from the drawer. "My consults are waiting for me?"

"Yup," she said, focusing on Heero. "So! Hi! I'm , but everyone calls me Megs. Welcome to Camelot! We're excited to have you as a citizen."

Heero rubbed his temple. This woman's eyebrows were pink and her pupils were slits like a cat. Neither he nor Alexander had any real context to put someone like . "Does everyone who is a citizen here have Camelot as a last name?"

She tilted her head, an eyebrow raising, an expression clearly picked up from Duo. "No. Why would you think that? Only those of us born here from ectogenesis do. I saw your file. You're Alexander Tanaka, right? How did you meet the mayor?"

"I am Heero Yuy. We met when we were young. Why is that relevant to you?"

"I'm his assistant. I'm planning your wedding. Are you really this much of an asshole?" She pulled a screen up over her left forearm, scanned him. "Yer ID says yer Alexander Tanaka."

"Yes. I need office space. Can you provide me with office space?"

"Yeah, I guess. Duo's gonna be busy for a couple of hours."

"Thank you." Heero gave her a sweet and gentle smile. Duo saw him give that same innocent smile to an enemy guard before shanking him in the war.

"So what's yer favorite color," she asked, leading him to a room he could use.

"#7 Alpha 5 Delta Charlie 7," he said, looking over the room. "Have a nice day." Then he shut the door and turned up all the security measures.

Megs made a face at the door. "Oh like that's gonna be a durable marriage. Crazy bastard."

In his own office, Duo put the final approval on Alexander's parent's. He assigned them land by his own estate and then assigned Heero another parcel near both. With that he let in the first of his consults.

"Mr. and Mrs. Anderson," he said reluctantly. "Didn't we decide you guys were divorcing last month? I moved both of you to new parcels on the colony, didn't I?"

"Yeah," she said, "But you won't believe what he did! He tried to take Mr. Jefferson! That's my dog and I will not part with him!"

"That dog likes me better."

Duo sipped Irish coffee from his coffee mug. The Andersons had married in 1951, after he'd come back from WWII, which was so long ago that Duo had a lot of trouble really conceiving of the concept. Like many of the folk living on Camelot, they'd been brought to him by Quatre's people. He'd just been living along as well as he could while his mind decayed whilst he was still trying to use it, but sitting there looking at them argue over a dog he'd already told them he could clone for them, he realized he'd never really believed they were from that long ago. Remembering when they'd first arrived and they'd thought they were in heaven. Ernest Anderson had said he lived without cigarettes and whiskey for 30 years so he could to heaven and he damn well expected streets of gold. Duo had tried to explain that while they had that much gold, as they could synthesize it, gold was very heavy and it would destabilize the colony, make it much more difficult to maneuver, if he ever needed to. That had gone over well... Duo had the streets in their neighborhood painted gold. It had been several years and they had come to accept that this wasn't heaven. Sitting with them now, Duo realized they really were from fuck tons forever ago and that Quatre had been playing with time travel for a long time. That seemed so damn obvious now. How had he just glossed over it before? Everyone knew time travel wasn't real. Next he was going to find out that Heero was a werewolf. He propped his chin in his palm, nodding and staring as Mrs. Anderson expounded on the evils of doggie thievery. Heero... as a werewolf... a foot taller, dark hair down to his shoulders, tight little waist, big cock, a big cock that knotted.. .Heero's hands on his shoulders.. In the forest.. They'd be in the forest - there would be struggling and crying - Heero growling, something about being his forever.

"ARE you listening to me? Mayor Maxwell! Did you hear anything I said at all?"

"You should listen to her, boy!" Mr. Anderson said, "She was a teacher and she deserves to be respected!"

"Uh," Duo said, "Uh."

"That's right. Now you apologize for not listening to Mrs. Anderson."

She gave him this shy little smile, sweet and adoring.

"Uh. I'm sorry." Duo said, really wanting another long drink of his 'coffee'.

They reached out to each other, hands locking together. He smiled at her, this love like he'd fight through rattlesnakes to bring her a rose.

"So," Duo said, having a sudden and he hoped, brilliant idea, "I was thinking about starting a militia. You'd have to de-age a little, but I'd love to have you in the squad, Mr. Anderson. We really need a sergeant with experience."

"OH I couldn't.. Not unless Agnes can also.. Have such an expensive treatment too. You understand, of course."

"Oh yes," Duo said, nodding seriously. "I'll arrange treatment for both of you and Mr. Jefferson, of course. I know how important he is to you both. I believe, Mrs. Anderson, that you once expressed interest in being a nurse. You're welcome to attend university here to become a nurse. The militia will need one."

"Oh, Dearie, I'm much too old."

"Well, take the treatment, because we really need Mr. Anderson's assistance, for the protection of the colony. You know we have school children here too. There's no pressing danger, but it's never too early to be prepared! Maybe after treatment, you'll feel more like taking some studies."

"Well, maybe, maybe that would be okay," she said as her husband took both her hand in both of his.

"Lovey, I think I'd really like to do this. To protect people, you know."

"He was a police officer for twenty-five years," Agnes said proudly.

"As I understand," Duo said, speaking as much bullshit as he thought he could get away with,"he served with great distinction. I'd be honored to have you help me form the militia, Mr. Anderson."

"Do you think it's a good idea, Agnes," he asked, a bit of light coming into his eyes, nervous energy about him.

"Why yes, I do think it's an excellent idea. I think you should do it, Ernie! I do."

"There. Then that's settled. I'll send a letter over within a few days with more information," Duo said, standing and holding his hand out. "Thank you for coming to see me today, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson."

Mr. Anderson took his hand shook firmly. "It was lovely to see you, Mayor Maxwell. I hope you'll forgive me for being rough with you. I just had to protect my lovely wife."

She tittered into her hand, snuggling close to him.

Duo's face was polite, professional. His lust for Irish coffee was high hand his dislike of antique gender roles higher. "Of course, I'm glad I could see you both. Have a lovely day!"

Saphron pointed at the small screen they were all watching the video on. "There, right there. Do you see dad's face? What the hell is blondie saying?"

Jacob touched the screen, slowing it, zooming in. "He says, 'I am never telling you that, ever. I will not have you trying to rescue every waif in all of history.' So.. you're saying that Dad's friend has actual time travel?"

"That's what he said," Saphron said. She pulled one foot up under her leg. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I don't know," Jacob signed, thinking about law school a whole lot more than he thought she was thinking about prison, but he was pretty sure that was where they were headed. "What are you thinking?"

Roy sat under the desk, sucking his thumb, listening to both of them as if they were explaining the meaning of the universe.

"Well. Heero's parents are going to be here for the wedding. Don't you think it would be good for Dad to have his parents?"

"So, dad's parents are dead. I don't think it's okay to bring corpses to weddings and how the hell are you sure that they're getting married. Just cuz dad got laid, don't mean he's gettin married." Jacob tilted his head and arched his eyebrows.

"Yeah? So why did Megs order 250 blue roses and 250 purple roses and 500 kilo of white cake?" Saphron smirked, victorious.

Jacob held up his hands, signed as dignified as one could when being herded by Saphron. "Just because Winner Corp has time travel, doesn't mean we do. He'll never agree to letting so and get some people no one has actually met. Maybe they're perfect assholes or something."

"Nope. Dad's parents are good people. It's genetic and they deserve to see how their son came out."

"What if dad came from ectogenesis," Roy asked around his thumb, "And he ain't got no parents. I ain't got no parents."

Saphron ruffled his hair. "You got us. I'll boss you around some, if you want."

He sucked his thumb and ignored her, staring at Jacob.

"If that's the case, then at least he'd know," Jacob allowed.

"That'd be a good wedding gift, right?"

Roy nodded. Jacob reluctantly nodded, "But how are you going to get the technology to do that? If Mr. Winner wouldn't give to Dad, he's not giving it to us."

Saphron held up a finger, smirking with satisfaction. "Watch this!"

Jacob watched. Roy curled up under the desk.

"Julia!" Saphron yelled. "I know you're here. I know you heard everything we said."

Julia did, in fact, manifest in her youngest form, sweet and cute, looking a little like Shirley Temple. "Yes, big sister?"

"You wanna go to school with us and hang out with us and be our friends forever?"

"Yes," Julia said biting her lower lip.

"So go get us the time travel control tech out of the L4 ship that's docked."

"I can't! I don't know how!"

"Sure you do. You're more than half computer anyway. You wanna hang out with us all the time, right?"

"Yeah, but Daddy'll be mad if I steal!"

"This is for Daddy. You want to meet his mum, don't you? You want to make Daddy happy, right? I know you can do it! Just get in, get out, don't get caught."

"And then I can come to school with you? Everyday?"

"Everyday. You have to make an older body though. Can you get the tech for us?" Saphron gave her a worried look.

"Okay! I can do it!" Julia said, already dissolving her current body and heading into an infiltration into the ship's computer.

"We're gonna get in so much trouble," Jacob said softly.

"Naw! This is gonna work great," Saphron said proudly.


	16. Chapter 16

A Wrench to the Heart 16/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Julia put on her favorite dress, a mini mouse dress that Daddy gave her when he took her to Earth to go to Disney Land. She put on shiny black shoes. She'd been distant from the barely alive remains of her origin body for so long that the computer systems seemed more like home, more real anyway. She imagined a pretty crystal bridge between her primary system and the space ship's computer system. Once she was across the bridge, she saw that the computer was inside a great big stone castle, like from an old story. The space was quiet, no wind, no birds, no people working at anything. This castle was her mind confabulating data between the system she normally lived in and this strange one. She decided she could live with that. Daddy liked fairy stories.

She imagined a swarm of hundreds of little blue dragons that flew up and around searching the stone walls done in opus quadratum style. She imagined a small puff of blue cloud under feet so she could try to look over the wall, but the higher she went, the higher the wall went. There didn't seem to be an opening anywhere on the whole thing.

And suddenly a window opened where there had been no window before. A slightly yellow man with pink dots on his cheeks and black tips to his bright yellow hair stuck his head out. "What do you want?" He took his Mad Hatter hat off for a moment, put it back on, as if he'd been being polite.

Julia smiled her sweetest lost little girl smile. "I'm looking for a wedding present for my Daddy!"

"Really," Quatre's computer asked, leaning close to peer into Julia's eyes. "Who's your daddy?"

Julia didn't give an inch, but made her eyes grow a little wider. "Duo Maxwell. Maybe you've met him?"

"Indeed I have met the Marvelous Duo Maxwell. Would you like to come in for tea?"

Julia nodded. "But maybe you have some hot chocolate?"

"I do have hot chocolate! I have cookies!"

"I love cookies!" Julia said, clasping her hands together.

And then she was inside the private space Quatre's computer had carved for himself. "So... I need a name," he said, as he carried a tray with cups and a tea pot. As you're looking for a gift, maybe you can help me look for that."

"Sure. How come you don't have a name?"

"I only just recently came into being, you see," he said as he poured her a cup of coco. "I rather fancied calling myself Pikachu, but now I'm afraid that people won't take me seriously."

"I understand," she said as she scooted into the big Victorian style chair. Her feet didn't reach the ground, but she held the cup in both hands and sipped the chocolate. "This is very good!"

"I know, right? It's the way my crush likes it!"

"You have a crush. Are they coming to come to Daddy's wedding? Maybe you could ask them and come like a date!"

"Oh that would be romantic," Pikachu said, sipping his own chocolate as he scooted the chair closer. "I've never really had a friend. Can you be my friend?"

"I don't know that I'm very good at being friends," she admitted, "But the big kids said I could go to school with them if I got the designs to make a time travel machine to go back in time and get Daddy's mom and dad, so they can come to the wedding. I can try to be your friend. I'll visit you."

"Would you really? I'd like that. I really like you visiting. Maybe I could go to school too. Do you think it's a lot of fun?"

She nodded. "I think so, but I've been very afraid to go. I'm afraid if I act like I'm getting too well, Daddy'll make me heal my body of origin and I don't want to."

"Oh that is a hard place to be. I'll try to be your friend too. My crush will be at the wedding and maybe if I'm in a body of my own, he'll consider me."

She licked at chocolate on her upper lip. "It'd be hard to be considered without a body. What happened to your body of origin?"

"This is my body. It just doesn't feel right anymore though."

"Do you mean the ship is your body?"

"Yes." He took another sip of the chocolate and set his teacup down. "Would you mind waiting her for a moment. I'll go see if I can get the plans. Do you think it would be alright if I stayed with you for a while, in a new body?"

"Sure. Daddy gets new kids all the time. Heero FrownyFace has come to stay with us, but I don't know if I like him."

"Is he mean? Do you think? He did kind of yell at me."

"I think he's used to only being around adults," Julia admitted. "There is a tiny possibility that he didn't enjoy my impression of a Xenomorph. I kinda turned him blue for a few seconds."

"Oh yes, well misunderstandings do happen. You won't do that to me, will you?"

"No. You seem real nice."

"I'm so glad you think so! Wait right here!"

"Of course," she said. As soon as he was gone, she grew a little bit, enough so that she could pour some more coco, then went back ot her default cute size and waited.

"Mr. Winner," Pikachu asked, back in his very ordinary 'Bob' skin. "I would like to ask your guidance."

Quatre looked up, glared, sipped tea. "Are you done with being bright yellow?'

"If that would make you happy."

"It would."

"I have received a communication from Julia Maxwell, requesting assistance in finding a wedding present for her dad. She's a little high bandwidth. I wanted to let you know that it may take me several moments to assist her in her endeavors and make sure that was okay with you."

"What kind of gift," Quatre asked, because he knew Julia and had a healthy fear of her taste in fun.

"Something nostalgic and loving that supports strong family ties," Pikachu said, face bland the way Bob's face was supposed to be. "Also, in assisting her, I believe I will be able to restore the ship's computer to its original format. Do I have permission to undertake that task as well."

"Yes! By all means. I'm so tired of you being yellow."

"As you will, Sir. The system may experience slight power drains that will represent no risk to the ship."

"Uh uh.. Good." Quatre said, going back to his reports. "We're docked here until after the wedding. Make good use of your time."

"Oh, I shall," Pikachu said, bowing politely.

He popped back into the space he'd been sharing tea with Julia, yellow hair and top hat back in place. "He makes me so mad! I'll make him notice me at the wedding. He's so pretty!"

"Who?"

"Quatre Rabera Winner."

"Did you get the time travel thingy?"

"I did!" He clapped his hands together. "Let's go back to your place! I want to meet all your friends! How old should I make my body? What do you think? Do you think twenty would be good?"

"Yeah. You'd be kinda tall for going to school, but I guess you could do college or something."

"Okay!" Pikachu said. A knapsack appeared hung over one shoulder and he pointed the way. "Onward to adventure!"


	17. Chapter 17

A Wrench to the Heart 17/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing nor do I own Pokemon.

"Oh god," Jacob said, signing dramatically and speaking with his natural voice, such as it was. "Dad is not going to like this."

Julia crossed her arms, lifted her chin. "Sure he is. He can bring a guy home and keep him. I brought a friend home and I get to keep him."

"JuJu has a boyfriend," Roy said around his thumb.

"I do not!" Julia stamped her foot. "I have a friend now! Pika is my friend. You're just jealous!"

"I'll bite him," Roy snarled.

"Now, now," Saphron said. "Roy. Do not bite people. Someone might hurt you. So. Pikachu," she said, giving the taller blond the eye. "Do you have the tech, or don't you?"

"Can I live here and be friends with everyone?" Pikachu asked, templing his fingers, solid black eyes giving her the eye right back.

"Sure," Saphron said, smiling like that time she swore to Caprise Hilton that Roy had not licked her pet snake. That snake was never quite the same. "All ya gotta do is get Dad to say it's okay and I'm sure when you help us save his parents, that he'll be so happy to have you here, he'll beg ya ta stay."

Julia smiled, genuinely happy, "See? I told you it would be okay! So do we go after dinner?"

"Imhungry," Roy said.

Saphron pulled a meal bar from her pocket and tossed it to him. "We could go anytime, I guess. We have to find the right time. We want to be careful not to interfere with the timeline. We simply want to get a copy of DNA and mindfile, of both parents. We need to make sure that child Dad doesn't see us. He's got a memory from hell, so he can't see us. We all need to pick a different skin before we go. Do we want to go after dinner?"

"Well, it's time travel," Jacob snapped. "Why don't we just go now and be back by dinner?"

"That is an excellent idea," Saphron said, smiling at him gloriously.

His eyes widened as she'd completely missed his sarcasm.

"So! Let's go!" Saphron smacked the side of her fist against her palm.

"Yes, so I have some stipulations," Pikachu said as he opened up his bright yellow frock coat. "Quatre," and he said that name like he was speaking of his beloved, "told me to make good use of my time, so I am going to take charge of this endeavor. Which of you will be coming?"

Saphron raised her hand. Julia did too. Roy raised his hand without taking his thumb out of his mouth. Jacob sighed his eyes locked on Saphron for the time it took him to take a couple of breaths, then raised his hand as well.

"Fine," Pikachu said. "To make the best use of our time, I will equip everyone with a device that will prevent any damage to the time line and bring us all back to one minute past our departure time to this physical location. I will track Duo Maxwell's matrilineal progenitor and hope to acquire his patrilineal progenitor by that link."

Roy's thumb popped as he pulled it from his mouth. "And we gotta find his mum and dad."

Pikachu gave him a cockeyed look. "That is what I said."

"He's a little kid, idiot," Saphron snapped. "Give us stuff so we can't break anything in time and lets go. We're going to have to grow new bodies for them and that's gonna take at least a month."

"Why not just reprint bodies?"

"Well for one, genius," Saphron said, jockeying for dominance in the group again, "Heero and Uncle Q reprinted a few days ago which put a strain on the stored energy of the colony. If we did two or three more bodies that way, Galen, and then Dad, would be on us in a heartbeat. I want to surprise him the morning of the wedding. It's not much of a surprise if he finds out a month before, right?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure he'd be surprised enough a month before," Jacob said smiling apologetically.

"Besides, it's his mom and dad. I want to give them a few days to get their minds around being here."

"I bet she'll be glad to know her kid's not dead," Julia said, sitting on the edge of the desk swinging her legs. "She's gonna be real happy."

Jacob sucked in a deep breath, hands out, palms up, "YOU don't know that she'll be happy. We don't even know that she didn't willfully abandon her baby. People do do that, you know? You don't know she didn't put him in a bin and walk away."

"Ima smack yer stupid face," Saphron snapped angrily. "Same genetics! Do you see how much he loves all of us and we ain't even his kids, but he'd die for us. Something happened to her. She didn't abandon him!"

"I'm just saying! You don't know. Ty's mom was a drug addict. Dad was even addicted for a while. You don't know."

"She's good," Saphron said stubbornly. "She loves him."

"What if she's not," Jacob asked.

"Then I'll kill her a second time," Saphron hissed, voice low.

"If we find out right away," Julia said. "And she's bad, we'll let Roy bite her and we can get Dad a pony. I bet he'd really like a pony. A blue one. Can we also get him a pony?"

"Dad doesn't want a pony, JuJu," Saphron said firmly. "Are we going now? I want to go now. Don't bail on me, Jacob." She held out her hand for whatever Pikachu had to give her.

"And we're all going to be friends and I can live here," he asked her watching her face with squinting eyes.

"Sure. We're friends. Ya gotta ask Dad to live here, but that'll go better if he's happy. You want him to be happy, right?"

"I do," Pikachu said. He was well aware that some of his own newly formed neural patterning was an imprint of Duo Maxwell's neural patterning. He did very much want him to be happy. Who would know how to do that better than the people who had been living with him? He pressed his thumb to Saphron's wrist, right above her pulse. A small blue circle of words written in swirly elegant lines appeared.

"What language is that," she asked, "and what does it say?"

"It's Elivish and it reads, 'I do solemnly swear I am up to no good.'"

"I've never heard of Elivish before. Folk spoke it on Earth?"

"Quatre tells me no one spoke Elvish, but I like it. It's from a book."

"I like books," Julia said. "Will you read the book to me."

"I would be happy to," Pikachu said as he gave her tattoo.

Roy licked his wrist and held it out. Pikachu put the tattoo in the center of his forehead and turned to Jacob, who was holding out his wrist.

"Excellent. Shall we go?"

"But maybe," Jacob started and then they were standing in a dimly lit room. "Shit. That was fast. I didn't even feel it. Oh shit, can they hear us?"

"No, they can't hear us," Pikachu said. "They can't see you and you can't touch anything either. That way no one can accidentally affect the timeline."

Jacob gave a relieved sigh.

"Well, how am I supposed to do anything," Saphron snapped.

"You're not," Pikachu said.

"Daton! Put that down," a braided woman said, rushing to pick up a small boy who had been in the dark corner. He snuggled into her arms, even as she prised some soft translucent object out of his hand. "That's nasty. Did your nanny bot run out of power again?"

She was slender, with a long braid of brown hair, wearing medical scrubs, a hospital badge clipped to her pocket. She tickled his nose with her braid and he giggled a little toddler laugh. "Didn't I tell you not to come into the building? You know I did, right?"

"Uhhh," he said, one chubby fist holding onto her scrub, "Mama!"

She petted his hair and carried him deeper into the ruined hallway.

Saphron followed as if drawn. The building was ruined cement and steel, more the kind of construction history books talk about on Earth. It was surreal to not feel the ground beneath her thin sneakers. The ground was smooth and safe on Camelot. The ground in the ruin though was cluttered with bits of broken building and dust... not of which she could feel. This wasn't Camelot. They'd moved in space as well as time. This place was so old. Nothing like this existed on Camelot. Even the family craft she'd been born on hadn't been this... disgustingly dangerous. At the end of the hall, a bright light lead into a different kind of space.

The roof was gone, letting in the artificial light which was old and harsh compared to what she was used on Camelot. Holding her hand up to cover her eyes, she moved out of shadow into the brighter space. The hum of the old and early space station soaked into her now that she was less sheltered by the thick concrete walls. As her eyes adjusted, she found herself in garden type space, maybe the ruins of something that had been a green house. There was a shelter, what might be a shelter anyway, but it was made of repurposed shipping crates and what Saphron felt was garbage. The thing had edamame vines growing over it. There were hydroponic tomatoes and strawberries.

Little Duo came running out of the shelter at full toddler giggle, a huge grin on his face and his his mom caught him up again, tickling him and as she sat down on moss.

Not being able to feel the ground, Saphron hadn't realized the ground in the open square was covered with moss. It was such as strange place. It was like he'd come from a completely different world to anything she knew.

His mom, opened up a small basket and pulled out a block of cheese and a small knife, which had a wooden handle, nicked and used, but real wood. She squatted down and just stared at them as his mom cut little bits of cheese for him and he gobbled them up. After a couple, she held one back and said, "Dayton. Daaaay Tinnnn."

He held out both hands and said, "Mama!"

She booped him on the nose with the cheese cube and said, "Dayton," before setting the cube of cheese in his mouth. "You have to say something other than Mama you know. It's really not good for you to be out here by yourself most of the time, but soon we're going to be on the Fiji and I'll be able to be with you all the time. Then I bet you start talking in no time!" She held up another bit of cheese and said, "Say Dayton!"

"Mama," he said and held his mouth open for the cheese.

"What's her name," Julia asked, her hand in Pikachu's.

"Dr. Mercy Reigh. Next week, she is planning on shipping out on an outward bound miner as their medical staff."

Jacob stood with his hands tucked under his arms, as close to Pikachu as he could get without actually touching him. "Why are they living like this?"

"You needed a license to have a baby on this colony in this decade. She couldn't get one," Pikachu said.

"But she had a baby," Saphron pointed out.

"Yes, she did," Pikachu said neutrally. "You should take the mindscan now. There isn't much time left."

"What about the DNA?"

"That's not going to be a problem," Pikachu said.

"What's going to happen," Saphron said, growing agitated. "What happens to her? Why doesn't she get on the ship!?"

"You need to get her mindfile scanned or would you rather Jacob do it?"


	18. Chapter 18

A Wrench to the Heart 18/?

By Max

"No!" Saphron screamed. "Save her! You can do it! Tie into the computer here and save her!"

Pikachu tilted his head, one eyebrow rising up in curiosity. "But you know or should have known that she dies. I thought you only cared that she was a good person."

"You fucking idiot," Saphron screamed, though only they could hear her. "I'll be your friend forever! I'll have sex with you! I'll give you my anything! Just save her, please!" Her face trembled. Her soul cracked. "Please don't this happen!"

"But it has already happened," Pikachu said, confused. "Just don't look. It'll be over in a minute and we can get the DNA sample and go home." He smiled comfortingly.

Saphron ran her hands into her hair, her mouth open and she wasn't aware of her tears or saliva that ran from her open mouth as she stared.

Daton lay on the ground, his face bleeding, one eye open. Julia squatted by him, petting his hair, murmuring things no one else could hear, kind of rocking back and forth.

Roy seemed taller, though he wasn't like Julia who could change his shape. He had a physical body that he didn't want, but hadn't thought about changing. His face was hard and he spit into an already wet hand and threw spit as hard as he could at the big man bending over Mercy's bent body. As soon as he'd thrown it, he repeated, on just some small chance that he'd hit the man. Then closer and dripping slightly green tinted saliva towards the man's bare neck.

Jacob was pale, but kept scooting closer to Saphron until he had his arms around her. "Look at me, Saphie." He was bigger and forced her to turn towards him. She trembled in his grip, shaking like her body was considering turning inside out. "We are going to save her. That's what we came for. We know that Dad's alive. Her mind file won't have this memory. That's why Pikachu had us take it earlier. Breathe," he said, his words intelligible only because she was used to the way he talked without his speech assistance. "Just breath."

The little house crashed down and flame throwers turned the repurposed trash into crackling plastic screams.

"Don't hurt my baby," Mercy screamed, her voice ragged and tilted. "Please! Just leave him alone!"

The man with the flamethrower snorted. "Bounty on breeders is for bitch and spawn."

"Please! I'll do anything you want! Please! I'm a doctor. I've got money. I can give you money. I'll do anything you want."

The man behind her grabbed her braid and jerked. "You already gave me what I wanted, breeder bitch. We'll burn yer bodies up nice though. Ain't that nice of us? Don't want no rats nibblin on ya, right?"

"I can get you onto the Fiji!"

"What fun is that?" The flamethrower belched.

Jacob cupped his hands over Saphron's ears and spoke without making a sound, knowing she could read his lips, "See, now you're like me. You can't hear. We're together here. I'm with you. We're going to be home in a minute and we'll have saved Mercy."

"Why did they do that?"

Roy tugged her shirt and smiled. "When Daddy's bigger, he fights the monsters. That's why we're safe."

Jacob pressed his hands tighter.

And in a blink they were home, back to the same moment they left from, but nothing was the same. Feeling a little safer, Saphron rounded on Pikachu. "Do it now! No waiting. Do a full respawn. Right now! Dad!"

Pikachu's mouth dropped open. "But... what about surprising him at his wedding? Giving her time to adjust to this time period."

"Fuck that," Saphron screamed. "Respawn her now!"

Julia disappeared into the computer network and back right at Duo's feet as he and Heero were walking through the door. She smiled brightly, making her eyes big and innocent. She smoothed her skirt, curtsied.

"Oh fuck," Duo said, eyes narrowing. Deep under his fragile calm, Shinigami asked for a fucking cigarette. The day had been too long already, really. "What did you do?"

She batted her eyelashes. "Big Sister Saphie has been very bad. I think she might have hurt her mind."

"Saphron Maxwell!" Duo said, tagging her in the computer system so he knew where in the house to run too.

"Daddy," she screamed, "I'm in here!"

A message from Quatre forced through and he manifested as a hologram. "Your colony is making a massive draw of energy on my ship and my ship's computer doesn't know why. Do you?"

"Not yet," Duo screamed and ran faster. He was through the door into the secondary study doorway in moments, where he came to a screeching halt and back pedaled.

There in the center of the group was a woman, slender and familiar, a braid just like his. She wore medical scrubs and as she turned, Duo was backing up still, until he ran right into Heero who was still forward bound. She saw him. Their violet eyes locked. She smiled, radiant and joyful.

He was still trying to back up. Heero was confused and not moving, blocking the door and then she was on him, her arms going around him. He squeaked, heart racing. He felt like he could feel Heero's heart beating behind him and he clung to that. And her heart beating in front of him and she reached up to touch a long brown bang. "My Daton, my beautiful Daton. I love you so much!"

Duo's head seemed to implode. She frowned, her fingers reaching to touch the corner of his eyes. "Your eyes are bleeding."

"Not cool," he wheezed, the world going dark as he slid down until Heero caught him.


	19. Chapter 19

A Wrench to the Heart 19/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

"I don't want a tea," Mercy said emphatically. "I want a fucking scotch on the rocks, a double with a beer chaser."

She stood by the window in the proper sitting room. The chair Sung had pinned Duo in still had a slightly twisted leg. It had been a very eventful month. Duo was in his bed, with both Galen and Pikachu working on repairing his neural networks. Heero, Quatre, and Charlotte were in the proper sitting room.

"I don't think Duo has any alcohol," Heero said, "And the computers are too busy to generate any right now."

"I have some whiskey," Charlotte said. "I've found it pretty helpful around here."

"If you don't like it here," Heero started.

She pointed her finger at him. "OH don't you even. I am not leaving early and you need me. You just remembered who you are. You've got fifty years to process."

Heero snapped his mouth shut. Quatre snickered.

"Girl," Mercy snapped, "Go get the whiskey. You," she pointed at Quatre like he was a naughty little boy. "What are you laughing at. You think fifty years is a bit of a gap? You must find my two hundred year jump to be hilarious!"

"Now that you mention it," Quatre said, "It is pretty amusing."

Heero glared at Quatre. One of the things that he'd learned as Alexander was that it was a very bad idea to taunt people. That Quatre looked decidedly pleased with himself, as he was about to start a challenging game of golf. "It must have been disconcerting though, to blink and see your baby boy turn into a grown up man."

Quatre's smile was just slightly sadistic to Heero's understanding. Once, before a mission that they were doing together, he'd found Quatre dipping his bullets in a green fluid that Heero had formerly mistaken for absinthe. When he'd noticed Heero watching him, he'd had that kind of smile and said, "Don't get hit by any of these bullets."

"Quatre," Heero said softly. He hadn't spoken to Quatre about the bullets. He hadn't spoken to Quatre much about that time he got insane and blew Trowa into space. His voice was calm now, but not to be ignored, "Mercy is Duo's mother."

"Of course," Quatre said, putting a hand over his mouth for a moment, but the look of predator also faded. "I'm sorry for the manner in which you were brought to the present, Ms. Reigh."

"It's Dr. Reigh," she said, a darkness flashing in her eyes. "I'm a trauma surgeon. I shall tell you that it was disconcerting. One moment I was sitting with my boy, reading him a story, then I felt a chill and opened my eyes here. The moment I saw him, I knew that he had time travel and upload."

"I have time travel," Quatre snapped. "What do you mean by upload?"

"This is all virtual reality, right?"

"No, Madame. This is all physical reality. It cost so much energy to reprint your body that I am stuck here for at least three more Earth months."

"It's better than if they'd pulled the energy from the colony. We would have had to have asked for assistance. Awkward."

Quatre nodded.

"Wait... my rescue wasn't planned? My son didn't do it, did he?"

"I'm sure he would have, given a bit more time to think it through. He's just been a little busy with not dying from a brain tumor and getting married to the love of his life," Quatre said, his sadism rising a little.

"Where is she? I want to meet her," Mercy said.

Charlotte had returned and was pouring a glass of whiskey for each of them.

"Duo is marrying me," Heero said. "I am a professor of astronautical engineering and I love him with all my being."

Mercy took the whiskey, nodded her thanks, took a drink of her whiskey. "So. My son is gay. I'm assuming you're male. I have trouble telling with Asians sometimes. Are you a boy or a girl?"

Heero wrinkled his nose. "I don't think my sex is relevant."

"I look forward to delivering your baby," she said, her eyes dark. "And you," she turned on Quatre. "You have time travel, but not for very long, apparently, and you lost control of both the technology and your ship's security to a bunch of children. You're awfully full of yourself for a boy who can't manage security on his own ship."

"I'll have you know," Quatre said, rising from Duo's pretty Queen Anne chair.

"Roy!" Charlotte yelled, "No!"

Mercy moved quick, faster than Heero had expected. Roy's teeth had been about to sink into her ankle. She had him by the scruff of the neck, holding him up so their eyes were about level. He puffed out his cheeks.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I think you're a monster. Daddy's sick again. You did it!"

"Everyone is a monster, boy. Don't bite people who are part of your tribe. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, M'am."

"I did not make your dad ill, but I am going to make him better. You may address me as Grandma Mercy. What's your name?"

"Roy Maxwell. Ima sorry I was gonna bite ya."

She put him down and Charlotte pounced on him. "You know better than that! Now go meditate! You've had too much excitement today and your homework isn't done!"

"But there were monsters! The monsters were burning up Grandma Mercy! She was screamin and everything," Roy said, protesting as he was walked out of the room.

Mercy touched the iced down whiskey to her forehead. "You lost control of your ship to him?"

"Not just to him," Quatre said, arms across his chest, chin lifted defensively. "It was mostly Julia and Saphron."

Mercy caught a bit of motion behind the larger couch and then big eyes peered over the top. Now Julia's eyes were violet, the same shade as Duo's and her hair was the same shade of brown. Her current body couldn't have been older than five and she gave Mercy this look of hero worship.

"Who are you," Mercy asked, sipping her whiskey.

Julia boosted to the back of the couch and threw her leg over. She wore a dress that Shirley Temple might have worn, little blue shoes and ankle socks. "I'm Julia. May I please call you Grandma Mercy too?" She smiled adoringly.

Mercy arched an eyebrow, gave Quatre a look. "Julia took control of your ship, did she?"

Heero rubbed his throat, which suddenly felt sore as he thought about Julia being a xenomorph face hugger. "She doesn't always look like that."

"Is she Daton's biological child?" Mercy held out her hand and Julia ran to her, hugging her leg as Julia smoothed the soft brown braid.

"Hardly," Quatre sneered. "She's a menace. I'd put her in stasis, if it were up to me."

"You're mean," Julia said, hiding her face from Mercy, but flicking a forked tongue out at Quatre.

"Come on, sweetie," Quatre snarled, "Show Grandma Mercy your true colors."

"Now now," Charlotte said, "Let's not go there. Come on, Juju, let's go get your bath taken care of then you can lay down with your daddy for a little while. You can read him a story."

"Okay," Julia said as she ran into Charlotte's arms. "Is Saphie okay? Her mind went pop today."

"Yes, I know," Charlotte said, carrying Julia on her hip. "I gave her something to sleep. She'll feel better tomorrow."

"Is there anything else I should know. Wait. What year is it?"

"It's 443AC," Heero said.

Mercy downed the rest of the whiskey and sank down onto the couch. "So tell me about this world?"

An hour earlier, when Julia had come to get Duo's help. In the back of Duo's mind, Shinigami had noticed, watched... woken up a bit. Then when Duo had hit that door and started backing up, the threat had done what it always did for him. It was like a fucking jolt of adrenaline to the core of his being. He remembered that woman. It wasn't his memory. It was Duo's memory and painful proof that he was just an after spawn, some coat that Duo had made to protect himself. As Duo's consciousness slipped from the forefront, Shinigami woke, really woke. The memory of Duo clinging to that woman was so vibrant to him. Then a boot in his face and pain like he'd never known... and for the very first time, there he was.. His own memory, his first moment of consciousness was laying on the mossy ground, listening to Mommy scream, the grunts of the man, the scent of burning. His present self took data that he had in the present, buried memories and sensation... and he knew that Julia was with him, holding him, promising him that everything would be okay. And he loved her. He loved her like he'd never loved anyone or anything. He loved her enough that he was himself, separate from Duo.

The stream of energy pulling from Quatre's ship was still active. For a moment he felt terror. He'd never felt afraid on his own before... not for himself. Only in that moment did he really understand that he'd never been real himself. He was afraid to jump. He was afraid to stay, afraid that this moment of actual being would go away and his own true life would be so short.

So he jumped.

He left Duo's body, slipping into the data stream at the speed of light. He walked right by Pikachu as if he were frozen because he moved so slowly. Shinigami grabbed the time control node from him, winking slow enough that Pikachu could see him, but then he was off, sucking energy for a respawn of his own body.

For a tiny moment in actual time, he brushed by Sung Chang. Both of them more digital than flesh, the edges of their beings blending, until Shinigami pulled back. Sung pushed into the digital space, searching for him, reaching for him. Shinigami perceived Sung's face, his soul, his very being and put up barriers and pulled his own being back. Anger like black tide rushed at his barriers, dark and blue, possessive.

Shinigami spun his attention to Sung, replied with a wall of jade light. "No."

A shared space manifested and Sung poured into his form like black sand spilling in an hour glass. He was a beautiful creature, his hair dancing around him like fireflies. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"I mean no," Shinigami said. "I mean no. I don't love you. I never loved you. I don't want to be with you. But yes, I want you gone from this colony when I get back."

"You're a shit," Sung said sweetly. "You need me. You love what I do to you."

"I liked fucking you," Shinigami allowed. "Leave Duo alone, and we're good. Bother him, in the slightest, and I'll hurt you. Dr. Chang, you know how good I am at that and how much I enjoy it."

"You're sick," Sung hissed.

"Not gonna deny that," Shinigami said, winking. "But you need to be gone when I get back."

"I'm going to make you better," Sung promised, then was gone.

As soon as he was gone though, Shinigami went back along his path. He spun energy out of Quatre's ship, a little out of Camelot and then he hit down on L2 and grabbed more energy. His body was expensive, filling into real life, his body building up on a cellular level.

Shinigami shivered as his new body woke up, the nerves tingling as they came into being. Rage was a very comfortable emotion for him. The scent of burning flesh singed his nose and he snarled, a tingle going over his scalp. He stood up, ashes in the air, under his feet. He wore black body armor. His eyes were the darkest purple and he felt a powerful satisfaction that they'd never be different. He stood up, smiled at the bounty hunters. The one with the flame thrower fired it back up.

Shinigami snapped his arm out and a gundanium shaft extended. When it was fully out, a green energy scythe sizzled into being. "Having fun yet boys?"

"What the fuck do you want? We aren't going to share the bounty on this bitch."

Shinigami spun his scythe around, the green casting a glow over his face. "I don't want yer money, boys. But I'm a tell you a secret."

"Kid, yer a freak. Get lost, we ain't killed the brat yet. He's gonna get away and that's gonna make for a lot of work."

"Oh you have no idea," Shinigami said, grinning like he was the devil himself. "Some things don't pay enough."

"You really think yer the shit, doncha," the dude with the flame thrower said. He fired it up and aimed it at Shinigami.

A dark fabric thin wing of gundanium flared out and the next thing Shinigami was inside his guard and the green blade lifting the man's head off. The scythe came down putting the flamethrower in pieces. Shinigami put a big boot in the man's chest and kicked him over because he didn't seem to be falling fast enough.

The other man squeaked and started running before he'd fully turned around. Shinigami was on him before he'd gotten more than a step. It took all his effort but he planted the end of his scythe through the man's shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

"Oh god! Let me go! I'll bleed to death!"

A knee in his back, Shinigami leaned close and whispered, "OH yer not gonna bled to death. I promise." Shinigami blew against his ear, deceptively sweet. "That woman you just barbequed, that was mah mom and I love her a lot. You and me, we gonna 'talk' fer a while."


	20. Chapter 20

Fic: A Wrench to the Heart 20/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Warning: Violence, what would be death in most other worlds

It's always there. I can always hear it. It's hard to remember a time when I couldn't hear the hum of my life support. Maybe that's because I only started hearing it after Dad started talking to me. No one ever talked to me like he did. ... it had to be... like thirty years ago. I pick how old I am on my birthday every year. Not that that's really my birthday, but he said that's okay. He doesn't know when his birthday is either.

For the first year that I was here, he'd come in every day and read to me, call me kid. "Hey, kid. How's it going today?"

And then one day I just wanted to be there... to follow him out of the room and my body just formed. I realized he'd made that available to me without judging, without decreeing. The computer system that ran the whole colony was open to me. He trusted me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because he doesn't really trust anyone. Everything has redundant security systems, always. He used to tell me that Heero started that and he just carried it through. Like there are ten power supports on my life support. I'm not even kidding. One back up wasn't good enough.

My body is burned so badly that it'll never really work, ever. I would have to respawn to heal, and I just... didn't want to. I don't really know why. Before the hum of my life support, before I could have whatever body I wanted, before Duo Maxwell made this safe place for me - the world was monsters. I expect the world still is monsters. Everyone is, at the very least, sewn together with monster thread. Even Daddy. I'm way more monster than he will ever be, but he still loved me. So there are two things that really just fortify my sense of self and safety... knowing he'll be back and the hum of my life support.

So when it stopped humming, all dice were in the air.

Before that hum...

There had been a ship called The Baths... The ship had beautiful in the way a diamond blade is beautiful as it cuts you up for sale in a butcher shop. There had been no mother or father or childhood. She'd come into being for the pleasure of others. Before the hum there had been no hope because there had been no concept of anything other than service.

"Hey kid, I got a game for you. I'm just gonna set it here for you."

Duo Maxwell was a little goofy looking, especially back in those days when he was fighting novo addiction and his own demons. Somedays had been dirty hair and rumpled clothes and skinny fingers.. But his eyes had always been kind, always been curious.

Being loved is beyond explanation. Not all the maths in the heliosphere could every fully explain the impact of really feeling loved. He'd smiled at her everyday. He'd never asked for anything.

In all the time that there had been a hum, he'd never told her to grow up, to go to school, to stop climbing in his bed on bad days, stop stealing his food sometimes, never told her to stop being inconvenient. At the same time, he'd told her to stop scaring people, not to harm others, to respect herself, to respect other people, to know her limits.

Limits are a really hard thing to know.

Time isn't always easy to explain either. The hum had been gone for a whole two seconds. The computer that ran all the automation on the whole colony was shutting down. The air for everyone would be gone in twenty-four hours. Julia pulled into her the last bit of data that computer had, the last of its breath before it too went silent.

Sung Chang was in the house.

At the very same moment, Julia whispered in the ears of all the children, of Charlotte, of Heero... "Hide."

But then Sung was on her, sliding into the data stream like poison in the water, in water she felt in her throat as she swallowed. "I'm here," he sang. Her awareness dimmed as he cut her off from the dying computer. "I'm going to kill them all. Every last one of them, but I'll start with you."

Thoughts make a humming too... and you don't notice it until it's gone.

So then what am I? I read a book about how want is bad... That without want we'd have peace.

But I want...

Breathing feels so good. It never felt good before. The tremble that rolls over my shoulders feels good... a tingle up the back of my neck feels great, and the braid on my back feels heavy and warm... And I'm in a body. Moving feels fantastic and there in the glass of my preservation tank ... it's Daddy's face looking back at me. I'm wearing his favorite tee-shirt and jeans. I really don't like the braid. It pulls on my scalp.

To be in a body, cut off from the computer feels so limiting, and yet also as if the whole universe were opening to me.

It's funny... love meant everything to me. Daddy meant everything to me. Love means everything to Sung Chang too. Daddy means everything to him... or Shinigami does. English really needs more words for love. The safety, freedom, and support that Daddy gave me is not the same thing that Sung wants.

Julia pushed a screw driver into her back pocket and opened up the door. The lock didn't work with the power out.

There was just enough light in the hallway that when she closed the door behind her, she knew she wasn't alone.

Heero, Uncle Q, and Grandma Mercy were talking downstairs, trying to figure out what was going on. Just outside of Daddy's bedroom door, his hand on the doorknob, Sung Chang paused, turning to look at her.

She smiled with Daddy's smile. Sometimes things could go sideways. Some old skills could be reused. She reached out to him, smiled like a lover, like the lies she'd learned before the hum. He hesitated. His hand trembled when he reached out to touch her cheek, to come his fingers into her hair.

"Shinigami? I'm sorry we fought. I need you. You understand?"

"I understand," she said, in her father's voice. "Love is powerful."

"It is! You'll see! It'll be better when it's just us again!" Sung said joyfully, arms around Julia, holding her.

"There's only one thing," she said, one hand cupping the back of his head, her cheek pressed to his ear, as she thrust the screwdriver up into the back of his head. "Daddy said no."

"I'm going to kill you!" Sung hissed, but the moment his control lapsed she pounced wrestling control of the computer from him, powering it back on and completely severing his connection to it.

"Relax," she said, wiggling the screw driver to make sure to scramble his networks. "Don't be afraid. I won't let them respawn you."

Just as the computers had faded and dimmed earlier, now Sung dimmed as she lowered to the ground.

The four adults had made it up the stairs. Heero took the point position, wary and mission oriented.

"He was going to kill us all," Julia said, wishing with all her might to shift into her cutest little girl form, except... that didn't work anymore. "I couldn't let him kill us. Was I bad? You don't think Daddy'll be mad?"

"No," Heero said, taking the screwdriver. "Julia?"

"I don't feel very good," she said as Heero finished prying the bloody screw driver from her hand. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

Mercy knelt by Sung, checking for a pulse. "His heart isn't beating. If we can get him to the hospital, we might be able to save him!"

"Dr. Reigh," Quatre said, his hand at the small of his back. "If you could move to the side a moment please."

She did, but Heero had to grab her when she saw Quatre draw the pistol.

"Don't worry," he said, "It's safe for colony use." Then he put two more holes in Sung's head. "Maybe now the bastard will stay dead. The computer is just now coming back up, right? Galen!"

"Sir," Galen said, appearing in his normal toga.

"Was Duo's reconstruction damaged?"

There was a moment of thought. "No. I don't believe so. May I apply first aid to Sung Chang?"

"No. You are forbidden. He is a threat to the entire colony and if you see him in a functional state he is to be placed immediately into stasis." Then he turned to Mercy, cocked his head and smirked. "I told you she was dangerous."

"What she?"

Quatre pointed at the Duo standing by Heero, Heero rubbing his back as he puked. "Julia. That's not your son. He's still unconscious. That's Julia."

"Oh. My."

A light flipped on in shrine on Titan.


	21. Chapter 21

A Wrench to the Heart 21/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I also don't own Xmen.

Note: Oh goodness.. I am not sure I'm about to do this.

The word was crayon red against his ear, a brush of fears that never let go. Julia's voice whispered deep in his mind, impossible to ignore or disobey. "Hide. There is a monster."

Roy's room was right next to the meditation room, because frankly, he spent a lot of time there. All of the children scattered, running, when Julia's warning rippled through the house.

The hardwood floor was smooth against his bare feet. His heart beat so loud that there wasn't enough room for air. He shut his door, back against the door as shaking fingers locked the door. His daddy was too sick to fight the monsters. There was screaming. Burning. The monsters were going to eat Juju and Daddy and Jacob. Roy wiped the back of his hand over his face and ran, slipping under his bed so hard that he hit the far wall. In the dark, he reached, little hands reaching out in the darkness until he found his secret.

It was a small zip top plastic bag. It glowed very slightly when he picked it up, reacting to his touch. As he held it, it glowed brighter, casting green over his face.

The house was so quiet... but he knew Juju was right. There had been fear and anger in her voice. As hard as it was, he crept out from under his bed, from the seeming safety, and ran to the closet. He closed the door as quietly as he could. He gathered as much spit as he could and held it curled at the tip of his tongue. Carefully as he could, he got the bag open and spit into, making the glow much brighter. He licked his two front fingers, sucking them for a moment, then stuck his fingers into the little back fo spit. Electric danced over his shoulders, made his hair stand on end. "Help me!"

Green mist settled into a small square plane and a golden eye started back at him. Set in a blue face, with stiff dark hair. "Brother?"

"Please! I need you! The monster is in the house!"

The face in the missed pulled back a little. "Little brother, I can come help you, but I need to know where you are and then we'll come and help you. I promise. What is your address?"

"I... I live in Daddy's house."

"Where is your Daddy's house," Kurt pressed kindly, leaning a little closer, golden eyes caring. "My friends and I will come very fast."

"I ... I ... I live on Camelot." Roy smiled proudly, eyes still glittering with tears. "It's at the L2 Point!"

A hand pushed Kurt aside and then there was much bigger man, not blue skinned like Roy's friend, but brown eyes and spiky brown hair, a brown thing hanging from his mouth for a moment. "Where the hell are ya kid?"

"Logan!" Kurt pleaded, "Don't scare him. He's just a little boy!"

"Well, I'm down for kicking monster ass," Logan said, grinning, "But I gotta know where ya are kid?"

"I'm in Daddy's house!"

"We can't help ya if we can't find ya," Logan said. "Are there any adults there?"

"They're fighting the monster! My daddy is sick. He can't fight right now and Mr. Heero don't know how. It's killing my sister Juju. Please help me!"

A woman in the background yelled, "Is he talking about the second Lagrange point? Like IN SPACE?"

"Well, are you," Logan snapped. "Kid can't be in space. He's just a little mutant boy. What country are you in, kid?"

Roy frowned at them, leaned closer to the mist until he could almost smell where they were... it smelled like cinnamon and something weird that made him sneeze. "Of course I'm in space. Aren't you? Kurt, are you gonna come?"

Blue hands pushed hard on the bigger man until Kurt was back in front of the mist. "I'm on Earth. I want to come... but how did you get in space?"

They were so close their noses almost touched. "I've always been in space."

The whole house shook then, timber creaking and breaking. Julia screamed with Duo's voice, but there was no more connection through the computer... it was like her voice was only one dimensional now. Several more shots fired. Uncle Quatre screamed things in a language that Roy had never heard.

A woman with white hair pushed up to the mist. "Is someone screaming in Arabic?"

Roy looked at her like she was speaking in Arabic. A long gundanium spider leg punched a hole in Roy's ceiling, once, twice, leaving light and dust falling on him. He sobbed, one hand reaching through the very mist. Kurt grabbed his hand. Both pulled in either direction, but then the angry leg was punching down again and Kurt jumped flowing through the mist into Roy's closet. The little bag of spit dropped, spraying into the dust filled air, as Kurt wrapped strong arms around him and teleported them a meter to the left, into Roy's room.

He picked Roy up and ran out into the hallway. Holes dotted the ceiling. The machine had eight legs, some of which bent and curled. There was a translucent body in the center that did look a lot like a spider body. An unconscious man with a long braid floated in a blue fluid that sloshed as another of those slender legs jabbed at a Japanese man on the stairs.

"Woah," Kurt said as another man with a long braid jumped from the landing on the second floor, landing on the spider body. He had a blade of some kind and stabbed repeatedly at the enclosure around his twin. A blond man stood at the railing, firing accurate shots at the legs as they tried to hit the other combatants.

"It's a monster," Roy said, "And it ate my dad!"

Another fighter was at the legs, moving fast, some kind of glowing skate on her feet, as she moved around the legs, dodging them and wrapping some slender thread around them, weaving her net around the machine's legs.

Roy looked around, spotted a window that he could see through, then teleported out into the yard, where he set the boy down. Saphron and Jacob ran over to Roy.

"Where's Juju," Saphron asked, grabbing Roy into her arms. "Who the fuck are you?"

"He's my friend! He helped me after the monsters before," Roy said, squeaking a little as Saphron held him.

"I am Kurt Wagner," he said bowing politely. "Can you take care of Little Brother while I help with the monster?"

"What the fuck are you," Saphron snapped, eyes suspicious.

Jacob held up his communication device which said, "She means, 'Thank you!'"

"I did not," Saphron snarled. "He's got three fingers? He's not from Camelot!"

Several other kids were running up to them now, clinging to the older kids.

Kurt teleported back in, clinging to the shadows where he couldn't be seen. It took him a moment of watching before he concluded that the blond was leading the battle. The air popped and he was up by the railing next to Quatre.

Quatre spun, his pistol up under Kurt's chin as soon as he materialized.

Kurt jumped behind Quatre. "I want to help! I am a friend of Roy's."

"Are you... an alien?" Quatre snapped, taking the stranger at his word and going back to putting ballistic balls of energy into Sung's machine. "Are you Roy's relative?"

"No, I'm a mutant, but I'm from Earth. Is the machine taking the long haired man? Do you want me to get him back for you?"

"If you could do that, I'd be extremely grateful. I will reward you greatly."

"I just want to help," Kurt said.

Julia fell then, one of the long flexible legs knocking her off as Quatre had been distracted for a moment.

Kurt, having spent his childhood as an acrobat, teleported into mid air, caught her, then landed, letting her go, before immediately teleporting into the belly of the beast and grabbing the unconscious man.

The Japanese man grabbed one of the legs, held it firmly for as long as he could, which was just long enough for the woman on the fire skates to get her thread around it. Kurt lifted the man, held him close, and teleported back to where the blond was giving the signal to bring the beast down. The woman in the center pulled her magic twine and it fell. Tipping like a drunk giant.

The Japanese man fast enough that Kurt thought he might be a mutant too. He wasn't as fast as Quicksilver, but he was fast. He was on his knees and pulling the unconscious man into his arms. He brushed long wet bangs from the man's face and leaned to kiss his forehead.

Kurt backed off, nodding, and then another person with a long brown braid stepped out of a room. Maybe it was a fashion or a religious thing. She ran to the unconscious man as well, checking his pulse, acting like a doctor.

Everything was very different here and he suddenly wondered how far from home he was.

The spider cracked as it fell and golden firefly like dots rose up out of the broken machine. They swirled together into the form of a man made of light. He touched his palm to his lips and held it out like he was blowing a kiss.

The front wall of the house was down though and Roy launched a spit covered pebble at the light figure using his slingshot. The figure spun and darkened, flowing towards the children in the yard. Charlotte ran towards them, but had to navigate debris and downed machine.

Kurt teleported again, just in time to be in front of the children and snarl back at the firefly man, using his demonic appearance for all it was worth. The snarling stream of light pulled up at the last minute and seemed to dissipate.

About that moment, a man in an American WWII uniform showed up in a jeep. He jumped out and pulled his hat from his head. "Christly hell!" He spun to look at Saphron. "What happened? The house..."

Saphron stood up straight, lifted her chin, her hands in her back pockets, "Well, see, Mr. Anderson, Dad's gettin' married so he had to break up with'is boyfriend and all hell broke loose."

"You don't say," Mr. Anderson said, "I'm here because.. I'm the militia.. But I guess I'm late."

Mercy followed Heero out of the ruined house. "We have to take him to the hospital!"

Duo was slight in Heero's arms, his head resting on Heero's shoulder. The wet braid hung heavy down Heero's back. "There are no hospitals here. It's all done through the AI."

"That's crazy," Mercy yelled, turning back to look at the ruined house. "This is all insane!"

"I understand this might all be a little bit of a shock," Quatre said, having his polite face on again. "I think we'll be relocating back to my ship."

"You can all come to our house," Mr. Anderson said. "We'd be happy to have you."

Kurt, looking dazed as he stepped out over some debris to get free of the house. "Is the battle over now?"

"For now," Quatre said. "I thank you for your assistance. I'm Quatre Raberba Winner."

"Kurt Wagner," Kurt said. "Are you all mutants?"

"Not that I know of," Quatre said. "Where is your ship? How did you get here?"

"Little brother brought me," Kurt said, pointing at Roy, smiling, "Maybe he would be kind enough to send me home."

"I don't know how, but you saved Daddy. You can live here with us! We'll make you a room when we fix the house!"

As the computer systems came back, Galen manifested. "I require help extracting Pikachu from the lower floor. He requires medical care that I do not have the energy to provide yet."

"He wasn't supposed to be alive anyway," Quatre said resentfully.

"Can you make me a medical kit," Mercy asked.

"I can, but I can not clear a safe path for you to get to him." Galen said, looking distressed.

"Can you show me where he is," Kurt asked. "Then I can take her to him."

"I can," Galen said, projecting an image of an unconscious Pikachu who was pinned under a fallen wall.

Kurt held out a hand to Mercy and they disappeared with a pop.

Roy jumped up and down, ran around in circles. "We win! We win!"

Saphron smiled, head tilted. "He's sexy."

Jacob crossed his arms, scowling. "I think he's gay."


	22. Chapter 22

A Wrench to the Heart 22/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or Xmen. This is my daydream, my safe place. If you want to be here, welcome. :) If you don't like it, please go find something you like better.

Duo woke with a headache the size of Euroasia and a feeling of alone more intense than anything he could remember feeling. He felt so alone... That maybe he was dead and beyond the reach of other people. There was always an extra hum in his head, a voice he couldn't quite hear most of the time. It was his sense of humor, his sense of safety, of irony and there was usually a subtext of violence and sex... But now it was silent.

He imagined himself on his meditation plane, a great blue space with a blue floor and a sky like Earth, but closer and more welcoming. "Hello!?"

"Hello," a feminine voice said, unfamiliar to him, but with the kind of tone that suggested she felt familiar with him.

His eyes opened to little violet slits that tracked her like a cat of prey trying to decide if it was hungry.

She brushed dark bangs out of his face like he was a tabby. "We need to get you a haircut, Daton. I've turned down the sedation so waking up should be easier in a moment."

Unease and darkness tugged at him. "Who the fuck are you?" His voice sounded hoarse, rough. As he came more to, his whole body hurt like someone had used him the ball in a fucking ping pong game.

He and Heero had been just coming home from his day at city hall. Julia had met them... She'd been upset. There had just been too many changes in the household. He needed to keep things calm for her. "Where's Heero?"

"He went with Quatre to the spaceship to get some medical equipment I asked for. No, don't try to sit up yet. I'm still running some diagnostics."

Duo laid back down, but he still wasn't feeling like being compliant and his trust meter wasn't floating high. "So ... Again. Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Dr. Mercy Reigh," she said proudly, reaching for his hand, holding it even as he tried to tug away. "I'm your mother."

"That's bullshit," he said, tugging his hand away and sitting up. Angrily, he started pulling at the sensors on his head. "My mother is dead... If I ever had one at all. What the fuck do you want? Julia! Julia Maxwell... Get in here right now!"

Julia stuck his head in through the tent flap, lower lip between his teeth, violet eyes wide and a little afraid.

Duo's hand covered his mouth, squeezing his mouth as he stared at his twin brother. "Julia. Come here."

Julia took a couple steps towards the bed where Duo sat, hesitated, than ran to him as if he were in the body of a five year old still. He wrapped his arms around Duo holding him with all his strength. "Daddy! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I'm sorry! Are you okay? I want you to be okay!"

Duo wheezed. "Cannnn't breathe!"

Julia let go a little, staring at him with a tear streaked face. "Are you mad at me?"

"Honey," he said, brushing his fingers over a face that was disturbingly the same as his. "I love you. If I'm mad, it's only because I'm scared for you. I know you wouldn't ever hurt anyone. Tell me what happened?"

"We wanted you to have your mom for the wedding!"

"Okay," Duo said nodding slowly, telling himself it would be a very bad idea to vomit while fulfilling his parental duties. "Saphron was listening when Q told e about the time travel, wasn't she?"

Julia nodded, hiding his face against Duo's chest. "But... She got so upset when the bad men hurt your mom. You were so little. I tried to help you. I tried. I made the computer hide you. I didn't tell no one I did it. I just hide you so they couldn't find you! I love you!"

"I love you too, baby girl. You're back in a real body, aren't you?"

"Yes, Daddy. I like it," he said, smiling the smile of a five year old on Duo's adult face. "I'm a boy now!"

"That's okay," Duo said, soothing fingers brushing over tear damp bangs, his thumb rubbing against a temple. "So why you in my body?"

"Uncle Sung said he was going to kill everyone. He shut off my bum and I was going to sleep, so I made the best body I could and... I hurt him. You said don't hurt anyone, but he was going to take you."

"I see," Duo said, rubbing his nose, pressing his thumb between his eyes. "Are you okay? You're not hurt?"

"No, Daddy, but Saphron is still very sad. Roy says she's never seen monsters before and I think her mind is broke now. Jacob is watching her all the time."

"Wull," Duo said, scratching behind Julia's ear. "Monsters kinda do that. I'll talk to her."

"I don't like the braid. I'll still be your kid if I cut it?"

"Honey, I'll be your daddy no matter what you do with YOUR hair." He leaned a little and smiled at Mercy, "So, Granny, you can give your grandson a hair cut. Touch my hair and I'll hurt you." He winked like he was playing, though he really wasn't. "Also. My name is Duo. Not Daton."

She put her hands on the bed, leaned close to him, violet eyes glaring into violet eyes. "You are my son. Nothing will ever change that. I love you very much, Duo."

Duo's nose wrinkled, eyes growing slightly wider. "I ain't callin' you mom."

"As if that makes any difference? Now, lay down. I need more diagnostics. I'm not going to let you die."

Okay... So he'd been in patch mode twice in a week. "I have a doctor. Thanks. Galen!"

After like half a minute of no response, Duo scowled and said louder, "Galen!"

Charlotte slipped into the tent then, carrying a tray with a sandwich and some tea. "The computer system is running on emergency power, so there is no verbal interface. Galen sent out a distress call before going into lower power mode."

Duo grabbed up the sandwich, sitting on the bed as he shoved sandwich in his mouth with one hand and pulling sensors from his head with the other. "Any serious injuries?"

"No, but your house is toothpicks. After Mercy was respawned, Chang Sung attacked. Julia spawned a physical body because Sung killed her originating body. Julia killed Sung's body, but he pulled energy and respawned. That energy drain has crippled the colony. I don't think anyone is going to come and help us, Duo... we're not an official colony... the Earthsphere government has already declined assistance."

"Yeah? Well, there ain't much love lost between me and 'Lena. Get me a console. Julia - you attacked Sung?"

Julia nodded, eyes big, though her 'I'm an angel' look wasn't nearly as effect on Duo's adult face. "I put a screwdriver into the base of his spine, then stirred his brains up a bit."

"You okay?"

"Yeah. He said he was going to kill everyone."

"Good job. Unlimited ponies for you!" Duo said, smiling, pretending he wasn't disturbed by seeing himself bounce at the end of the bed over playing My Little Pony. "Go tell Saphron to come here."

"Yes, Daddy," Julia said before jumping off the bed and running out of the tent.

Charlotte was just returning with Jacob's communication device. "Jacob said this has computer access, but it's the only thing in the camp that does."

"Dat'll work," Duo said, giving her a flirty wink. Focusing on the screen, he asked, "And you? What did you do in the battle?"

"Uh," Charlotte said, caught off guard. "Do you want another sandwich?"

Duo looked up, violet eyes pinning her. "What did you do, Charlie?"

"I used some weapons I brought into the colony without declaring them," she sighed, "I am also tasked with protecting you."

"Thank you. I appreciate you and your strengths. Anything else you want to disclose during this period of amnesty?"

"Uh..." She squirmed.

Mercy watched them with great interest.

Duo's fingers kept working on the screen. "Why are you turning red?"

"It's personal!" Charlotte crossed her arms stubbornly. "I don't have anything else that you are entitled to know."

"What? You got three tits or something?" He smirked, enjoying making her uncomfortable, even as he felt ashamed of himself.

Mercy tapped him lightly on the back of the head. "Don't talk like that!"

His gaze swung to Mercy, eyes angry. "Don't you fuckin' touch me! I'll speak how I fuckin' want, you hear me? I'm dead serious, Mercy. Don't touch me."

"What happened to you? Who hurt you so badly?

"Wull, that would be none of yer fuckin' business," he turned back to Charlotte. "Charlie, just don't hide weapons from me, or skills. You're highly skilled in combat, right?"

"Yes," she said, standing contritely. "I just wanted to help with the kids and go to medical school. I didn't mean to deceive you."

"We're good, Charlie. Go get me a couple more sandwiches and a pot of coffee."

Galen suddenly appeared, looking a little surprised. "Duo! What is this?" He immediately set about looking at the medical gear. "What is this? This is so outdated! Who did this?"

"Where did you get the energy," Charlotte gasped.

Duo tossed Jacob's communication device back to her. "Well, I told you not to hide things, not that I don't hide things." He winked again, and then Saphron was slipping into the tent.

Galen's hands moved around Duo's head, touching a barely visible swarm of lights, a network that might have been neuronal patterning. "Duo... your mindfile is ... there are no empty spaces. The tumor is gone."

Duo's stomach fell away. His head went light. The feeling of emptiness felt connected. He turned to look at Mercy. "What did you do?"


	23. Chapter 23

A Wrench to the Heart 23/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Notes: This is the second time I've done this chapter. Usually I write it and bam, it's done. Because this one connected so very deeply into my own experience, I needed to write it again... clean it up a lot. So let's see if I can do it right this time.

Warning: This is a violet chapter, likely to be pretty gritty.

It might have been a poor choice, coming back in time to the moment when his mind broke. It might not have been the best choice to leave Duo behind either. See - how this works is we get angry, I come out, I kick someone's ass or die trying, and then he takes over again and we wander along our merry path. He's cheery and emotional and caring and he's got so many things to do. He's respectable, ish, depending on the environment. He's the mayor. I'm the serial killer. I'm the darkness that eats the cancer, the never ending rage.

Except.

He's not here right now.

I just wanted to, so fucking badly.

I remember my mom and being safe in her arms. Her tugging at my hair and her voice, even though I don't know I really knew what the hell she was saying. I remember strawberries and pictures with kittens that moved and purred and her promising me I could have one.

We're getting a fucking cat when I get home.

I remember the world being a good and wonderful place. It's like it's there in my mind and I can pick up the gem of that feeling and hold it and look at it and it'll never fade.

Some part of me never grew past that moment.

The details of what happened aren't really relevant. It could have been a lot of things, I guess. A train wreck or a bomb or even some disease we didn't know how to cure yet. My mom died. I learned to be very afraid. I learned hunger and pain and cold.

It wasn't a wreck or a bomb though.

I used to sit in Duo's head and laugh when he'd get into these existential crises. How could he life if he couldn't tell Heero he liked him, how to cope with having less 'honor' after Wufei caught him jacking off, how to not be a shitbag after novo took over his life - what was the meaning of life? That had seemed so fucking funny at the time.

Sitting in the same courtyard in the same abandoned building, the blood dried on his hands, under his fingernails, on the teeth he was playing with in his left hand - that whole existential shit finally made sense. This had been purpose - this was what I'd been striving for.

Every unfortunate bastard who got in my crossfire had been practice for this.

They raped my mother and burned her alive. There aren't words for what I did to them because humans aren't supposed to do things like that.

Regret is something only he feels... I don't feel regret. I don't feel loss. I don't feel shame.

Those are his job.

Except here I am.

I took so much energy out of the colony for this escapade that I have put them in serious danger.

The teeth fell from his fingers as his hands pressed to his face. Home was two hundred and fifty years away. Plague, famine, and wars were between that moment and home.

Sometime after finishing vengeance and getting lucid there had been a daydream of cage fighting and gangsters, of pimps and prostitutes, and building a ship he wanted to call the Black Pearl... being a pirate and sailing up to Camelot with enough energy to save the day. He'd been so cocky in the daydream, gallant in black leather and powerful in all the things he did with his crew of rescued prostitutes.

But empty of rage, there was no more cocky, no more energy, no more fire. The teeth he'd pulled from his mother's murders lay on the broken concrete and even those seemed too far away.

"I see you're a little more awake."

"Heero?" Shinigami looked up from where he sat, feeling smaller now, his hair matted to his face, lips parted.

Heero smiled, his hair still cut short like Alexander's had been. He wore an urban camo tee-shirt and gray pants. He was relaxed, his blue eyes full of amusement. "I hope you weren't expecting Santa Claus because you've been a very bad boy." Heero squatted down in front of him and pulled a wet wipe out of the pack he'd been carrying. "It's okay if I clean you up now, yeah?"

"Why're you here?" Shinigami said, letting Heero take his hand and start scrubbing the dried blood away.

"It was a couple of days after Duo woke up that I figured out what you'd done. Our distress call had been out for hours and you hadn't showed back up, so I figured you were in trouble. I love you. I'd follow you into the heart of the sun, if I thought I had a 1% chance of saving you." Heero moved one finger to the next, efficient and caring.

"Why," Duo asked, voice very small.

"Well, I'm an astronautics professor and a soldier, not a poet, Shini. Think of it like this... you and Duo are the same person, but not. You and me and him, we're the same person, but not - in different way. I told you I'm not a poet. You never gave up on looking for me. You risked your life. You risked everything to find me, to save me, more times than I can ever count."

"But... I left Camelot in trouble. All I was thinking about was... killing them for what they did. Am I a murderer?"

"Technically, yes," Heero said, moving to Shinigami's other hand. "There have been a hundred thousand human cultures through the centuries. Many of them had different laws and rules about how consequences were meted out. The world we grew up in was not fair nor kind. I believe that all those you have killed were killed because you thought it was the best thing to do. You're more of an avenging angel than a killer. You are a good man. I'd like to think this is the last act of vengeance for you though. I'd like us to move forward into new experiences."

"We should find out what happened on The Rage," Shini said shifting so he was facing Heero. "I .. I don't know that I'll just go back in Duo when we get back. I don't want to break my heart or his."

"So?" Heero said, grinning. "I can't say that I haven't thought about having two tongues on my cock."

Shini giggled, which turned into a laugh. "You are so bad."

"Yeah? Look who's talking. Do you still want to make a ship called the Black Pearl?"

"It was a fun fantasy," Shini said, his clean hand brushing over Heero's hair. "I don't really feel like being a deadly pirate right now though."

Heero came up to kiss him, gentle and loving. "That's okay with me. I'm sure we'll figure out ways to keep busy."

"I love you. I'm sorry I'm insane," Duo said, between kissing back.

"I love you too," Heero said, "I don't think you're insane. I think you're coping with trauma. You saw them murder your mom. I think you are the strongest and most wonderful person I can imagine."

"If anyone else said that, I'd think they were full of shit," Shinigami said, his thumb brushing over Heero's lips, "But when you say it, I can believe it."

"Good. We should move. When you stand up, it's going to hurt." Heero pointed to the remains of the second bounty hunter. "You won, but it wasn't exactly cut and dried. He busted your leg and stabbed you twice. It's difficult to give you medical care when you're delirious."

Shinii let Heero slide an arm around his back, hold most of his weight as they stood. "I'm lucky you came for me. I did hallucinate something awful and the comedown was pretty bad."

A couple of steps away, Shinigami hesitated. "Wait... I want those teeth."

"I'll get them, but you need to sit down," Heero said.

"Okay," Shini agreed, watching Heero go and pick up the most gruesome souvenirs ever.

Shortest existential crisis ever. This was his meaning of life. "I love you. Did I mention that?"


	24. Chapter 24

A Wrench to the Heart 24/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Warning: EXTREME violence. Shini is having a run and venting some pent up anger

Note: These events happened before the events of Chapter 23.

There had been some moments in their lives where Duo had just screamed out something along the lines of 'OH my god!' It was usually something kind of shocking and probably not very pleasant. Heero had always found that phrase slightly irritating. Neither of them actually believed in any gods, even though Duo sometimes spoke of believing in Father Maxwell's god with some nostalgia. Racing up the stairs to some room... Heero expected to find someone coloring on the walls or something. Children - after all.

It wasn't the right preparation.

He was still going forward slightly when Duo backed into him, radiating some kind of primal terror. At moments of real stress, Duo did occasionally believe in ghosts. There had been this one time - in the war - when Duo had the flu and Heero swore he advised him at least twenty times that there was no such thing as ghosts. Duo still wouldn't leave his side. Which had been okay, because Heero wanted to be near him anyway.

So there was this woman turning and coming towards them. She looked so much like Duo, same braid, eyes, chin.

Heero could feel Duo's heart racing though, feel him pushing back against Heero, still trying to back up. The fear was so thick that Heero could almost share whatever stored emotion or memory Duo had. Then her arms were around him and she was speaking, but Heero was thinking that the scary ghosts aren't the dark raggedy specters, but visions of what we want and love and know we can't protect because we've already lost it.

Dayton.

There is something about being someone's partner, best friend, lover - for so long - for longer than humans used to live, longer than some storms on Jupiter - some of the person is written into your mind, a part of you and you know them. The change in Duo was so very subtle, so micro - but Heero's hyperaware enhanced cognition picked it up. That was his own OH my GOD moment... when Shinigami added up all the variables and jumped.

Heero felt the separation as if part of his own being were being torn away. Duo was dropping, sliding down him and he was catching him, lifting him protectively, but Shinigami was zooming farther away.

He still didn't believe there had been real ghosts in that old house. But he also understood that he might not be able to really just tell anyone, not even Quatre would believe or understand, that Duo had just torn himself in half.

While he was working on figuring out how to explain that to Quatre and ask for permission to use the time travel again... all hell broke loose.

Sung Chang attacked.

The battle destroyed Duo's house.

They picked up a new team mate... blue with an odd accent... who was deeply offended that there wasn't a single church anywhere on Camelot. It's not like there were any hospitals or trash facilities either, but pointing that had not won Heero any points.

Energy was low, too low, even after Duo woke up and turned on his hidden spare power.

And whatever Mercy thought she was doing, and Heero was sure that she meant well and acted out of love, but the results were disastrous.

Shinigami hadn't showed back up either.

So.

Heero had plenty of covert experience. The lingering echo of Alexander was duly shocked when Heero pressured poor Pikachu into making a second travel nexus, hacked into the power and took a dangerous amount of energy to make travel supplies and make the jump. He was going to be successful and show up with more than enough energy, a moment after he left. Heero Yuy made shit happen.

He hit the past about six hours after Shinigami did. It was like walking into a kitchen after an unlidded blender went off. He threw up a shield over the whole area and then encountered his real challenge... A feverish and delirious Shinigami with murderous intent, a broken leg, who was half bled out. Whatever was going on in Shinigami's mind, holding still while Heero patched him up wasn't really on the list.

So there was his dark ragged specter... crouched in a corner, dark violet eyes crazed and hyper, dark hair pasted to a gray face, slender fingers pawing the stained concrete, bone showing in a limp leg. The beautiful Mercy was fear and the horrifying and battered God of Death was the light of life.

Heero squatted down a few meters from him, moving slow, nonthreatening. "Let me help you."

Shinigami's Dream

L2 was what it was. Operation Meteor was a decade and a half away, give or take. Shin sat on a window ledge outside a grimy convenience store, a cigarette slowly trailing grey in one hand, bouncing small white objects in his other hand. The neighborhood was nicer than he remembered it. It was like coming home while the paint was still on the building.

"Are you lonely," a sweet voice asked.

He stared. She had blue eyes, suicide blonde hair, and almost enough makeup to cover the bruise on her cheek. He closed his fist around his small treasures and shoved them into his pocket. "What's yer name?"

"Angelfood," she said, leaning over to to show off her tits. "You like what you see?"

Shin licked his lips, thinking over his words, dark violet eyes adding her up like he was figuring out where to set the explosives. "How'd you get that bruise?"

"Is that what you like, honey? You like hittin'?" She smiled nervously. "Ican dothat."

He took another long slow draw of his cigarette, enjoying the feeling, enjoying the tantalizing seduction of longing. "Oh I do like hitting," he admitted as if he were sharing a delicious secret.

Her smile jerked, then she found her way back to inviting. "I... I like that too." She gave him a price per hour. "I got.. a room, if you ya wanna."

"Okay," he said, his hunger rising, his mouth wetting. There was a rage in him like the fiery pillar of God and it burned bright on the memories of mom, of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, of all the people who died in the war. Rotting flesh and screams. Oh there were so many things to do... and if he had only thought to bring more tech with him, to understand tech himself more than he had. He had to be temperate. He told himself to be reasonable... not fuck the timeline sideways.

He held his cigarette between lips, letting the red creep up towards his pale lips for a moment. Heero was just a little kid. President Heero Yuy hadn't been assassinated yet. Maybe, if he were clever, he could avoid all the wars. Save so many lives.

"So you gonna come to my room or not?"

Shinigami eyed her a moment more, gave a curt nod. He stubbed out his cigarette carefully and tucked the remainder into his shirt pocket. "Though, I gotta get some money first. You gonna be around this area for the rest of the night?"

"You shit," she said, hand on her hip. "You ain't got no money. You so fuckin' broke you saving cigarette butts. What are you wastin' mah fuckin time for?"

"There's somethin about about you that I like. Call it luck. I don't know if it's good luck or bad. Chance, nonetheless." Shini grinned, his mouth watering at his coming plans.

"You're creepy as fuck," Angel said, backing away.

"You have inhibited cognitive processes, but we're gonna fix that. Who do you work for, little girl?"

He thought she was a little like a flower in the wind, trembling under the rough wind of a violent world. "I'm gonna be a hot house for you."

"Yer a crazy fucker," Angel snapped, backing away seriously now.

"Run little flower, but remember, flowers don't choose their fate." He shoved his hands into his pockets, turning over ideas for the coming days. He needed an income. He needed it to be out of sight of authorities, away from people who kept records, and he really wanted to kill whoever bruised that girl's face. After all, he had two hundred and fifty years to fuck off until he got home... and suddenly, he had a greater plan. A lovely... lovely plan!

Twelve hours later...

The cage was rough, made of repurposed bullshit, electrified for the hell of it. Shinigami stepped into the cage, slender and slight in comparison to the reigning champion. He wore only his pants and some decent black boots. He'd drawn a couple lines of black grease over his cheeks and all the rage in him burned like an oil rig on fire.

The bigger man had a foot in height on him, out massed him probably by triple. He was clearly genetically modified to be a fucking jack hammer. "What the fuck is this? I'm ready to fight, not fuck!"

Laughter echoed around the rude cage. "Don't be like that Trumpet!" The pretty announcer girl said. "He's not here to dance. He killed three guards to get into the cage and he's bet all his money that he'll beat you."

"Oh, then I get a bonus when I break his pretty little face? Heh.. he's got pretty eyes. I think I'll fuck him. Gotta be flexible with these things. You like dick, pretty boy?"

"OH yeah," Shini said, slowly licking his upper lip, "I'm in love with someone else. Sorry."

"Well, bring him here. I'll fuck him too," Trumpet boasted, pumping his hips. "Is he gonna scream like you?"

"Are we gonna fight or what? You have made peace with yer god, right?"

"I am a god," Trumpet roared. "Come here Cupcake!"

"As you will," Shini nearly sung, charging him, fist pulled back like he was going to punch.

The two charged at each other. The crowd roared. Shini leapt, completing the arc as his fingers sank into Trumpet's eye sockets. The crowd reacted in a choked gag. Now Shini pulled back his fist and hit the bald side of his opponent's head, again, and again as the giant fell. Rage vomited forth. "Who is penetrating who now," Shini screamed as he hooked his fingers behind the dying man's eye sockets and pulled. Shattering bone gave way, but skin just pulled, and eventually, Shini gave up, stamped his booted foot on the man's chest and jerked his fingers free. The crowd roared now, overcoming the shock. The pretty announcer girl's face went close up on the screen and she smiled, "Hello Champion! What do we call you?"

"I'm the God of Death," Shini said, licking a finger. "Who else wants to play? Double or nothing, come play with me kitties."

"Do you understand how your account works," the neatly prim woman asked.

"Yeah," Shini said, pocketing the bank account information. "I appreciate your help."

"We live to help," she said with sweet sarcasm. "You listed that you are trained medical doctor on your skillset?"

"I did," Shini said. "I think I made it clear though that I am not currently licensed in any region."

"As a contractor to the Rox, if things do not go well, your consequences will not include a law suit, if you know what I mean," she said, no emotion, dark eyes watching him.

"I understand. Why do you ask?"

"Work requests come in through the Central Offices as well as financial accounting. As soon as I listed you as a new physician, a request came through from Regio Santano. He would like a consultation. You have a request in for information about a prostitute named Angelfood. Regio Santano is an information specialist."

"Splendid," Shini said.

"I have transferred the meeting location to your inbox. Welcome to The Rox, Dr. Gami."

"Thanks," Shini said, touching his fingers to his forehead.

"Dr. Gami," the woman said seriously, standing behind her desk. "Please don't ever take your obligations to the security of The Rox lightly. You seem like a unique individual. It would be a shame to have you fed into the mulch."

Those violet eyes glittered, a seething hatred for violent authority. "Oh I promise to take The Rox very seriously."

Eyes narrowing, she stared at him. "You had better. The organization is not some idiot thug in a cage fight."

"Of course not," Shini purred. "Thank you so much for the referral. I'd better get off to see my patient, hadn't I?"

"You do that."

Knowing how much poverty and misery was on L2 was deeply disconcerting as he sat in a very nice automated taxi with seats so much like leather that he only knew they weren't leather because he was nearly three hundred years old and had been around a few things. The house that he arrived at was a lovely house in a very respectable and elegant neighborhood. This was a whole different world than his much younger self was trying to survive in.

His recently purchased medical kit in one hand, as he knocked on the door, all the rage seemed spent. He'd planned for centuries of murder, but... now he wanted something else entirely. He wanted Heero and home and medicine. There was a sadness that was also a release.

Forgiveness.

The door opened finally and a mousy little person stared at him.

"I'm the doctor," he said softly. "I'm here to help."

"This one's mine. You gonna have a problem with that," Shini asked sweetly.

Jake pulled his sunglasses off and leaned back in his chair. "I don't give a shit if you're The Rox's new pet doctor. You're not takin one of my whores. I bought her off her mama proper. She's special to me. Aren't you, Little Cake?"

The girl nodded, her eyes on the floor. "Yes, sir."

"Do you have things you want to take with you," Shinigami asked her.

She nodded as slight as she could, so she could deny it if she needed to.

"Go get your things. Anyone who touches her is going to hurt."

"Don't move. Damn it. Don't you fuckin get it? She's mine. I BOUGHT her. I paid in cash. She's mine. I'm gonna sell that ass until it's too used up to sell, then I'm gonna part her out. People will fuckin pay for parts these days. If she thinks she's too good to work for me, I'll just start getting my money back early."

"Really," Shinigami said, sitting himself down at the table with the pimp. It was early in the day, too early for the night club to be up and running. The man clearly didn't face much opposition as there was no real security around. "I misunderstood. How many of these girls did you own? Did you tattoo'em with numbers or something?"

Jake accepted a bottle of beer from a girl in a pink maid outfit, motioned her over to Shinigami. "Look, this isn't The Rox territory, but I think we just got off to a bad start. If you want to fuck her, I can deal with that. See if you can find where I put the number on her."

"Look, I'm a kinky bastard. As I make my way home, there's a lot of shit I'm just going to have to overlook. That's a damn shame. There's a lot I'd really like to get done. I ain't even got a problem with prostitution, but in this particular case, we gonna be respectin human rights." Shinigami sighed. Life had been so much easier where weren't such loud echos of Duo playing in his soul. "The real question is are you going to distribute your funds between all these people equally or am I gonna cut you up into little pieces and do it myself?"

"What do you think that's gonna do? Ain't none o'em got IDs. They're gonna what? Go get waitress jobs? All they know how to do is suck dick."

"You know, I suddenly feel sympathy for you. I'm not real sure what to do about that," Shini said thoughtfully. "As for the rest of you - you've been slaves. You've been prostitutes. Wanna be pirates?"

A tall, slender woman with dark skin and a halo of hair rolled her eyes. "Are you insane? Like Har har har! Gimme yer gold matey?"

"Kind of... I mean space pirates in a beautiful black ship with a cloaking device... we'll prey on targets that deserve to be had, share the spoils between us and to people who need."

"Like Robin Hood," a younger girl asked.

Shinigami winked at her.

She stared at him, head tilting. "Do you got a spaceship?"

"No.. but I can steal one and I know how to build a better one. So do you want to be free pirates?"


	25. Chapter 25

A Wrench to the Heart 25/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Note: Continuity... Mercy's last name is Reigh.

I'd like to think I'm powerful. You know, kick the doors down, save everyone I love and happy ever after.

I make mistakes.

So, fuck ton long ago, like right after the wars when Preventers was hot to have what help they could get, they had me seeing this therapist... She was like.., the truth will set you free. If I could just find all the trauma and face it, release it, then I'd find...okay...whatever the hell okay is.

That was some bad bullshit. But now... I just killed the shit out of my first trauma and ripped out teeth before the dude was dead and ... Nothing. I fucking wasted almost three hundred years when what I should have been doing was thinking about Heero and loving the kids, building cars, doing good things... All this focus on the past was digging my own fucking grave.

Being okay is laying here with Heero Yuy's arms around me, even if I don't really know if he's real or not. "Still real?"

"Ee," Heero agreed. "How are you feeling?"

"Ashamed," Shini said, "Stupid, hung over, did I mention stupid? My leg feels ..odd."

"It's in a cast," Heero explained. "Broken femur. You've been out for a week, mostly. We're safe. Don't worry. Everything is going to be okay."

Shini cuddled back against Heero. "How the hell do we get home?"

"One day at a time," Heero said. "We can't die and respawn because your mind file is unique. Also there isn't enough energy to respawn anyway. We need to show up with massive reserves. We have a lot of work to do."

"Two hundred and fifty years? Fuck, 'Ro... We're both like two. I'm out there starving and there isn't shit I can do about it."

Heero kissed his ear, nuzzled him. "You don't starve. We are not going to disturb time more than we already have, however," Heero said, hinting at some surprise that would make things better.

Shini tried to roll over, found his leg heavy and awkward, so Heero moved over to the other side. He ran fingers through clean and dry bangs. "How would you like to be richer than Quatre? Make a Camelot University so anyone can come and study the world you built and learn and take it home to their worlds?"

Dark violet eyes narrowed. One opened wider, an eyebrow rising. "Richer than Quatre, you say? Rich enough that I could pay him back for building Camelot?"

"I'm not sure that he'd like that, but that is something we could see about. We need to get a ship, get far enough away from all the colonies that we can do some mining and energy production."

"I... I want to build a great ship.. Something magnificent to show back up with. Something legendary. And," Shini said, voice lowering as he rubbed his face against Heero's chest, "I don't want to kill anymore. I've just lost the taste for it."

"I know that feeling. I think you've always leaned that way. That's why you went to medical school. You're a very good doctor, when you want to be."

"I'm not. Duo's a good doctor. Medical school just made me a better killer." Shinigami took a long slow breath, eyes searching Heero's. "Do you think Duo can forgive me? What if he hates me? What if he wants me to die?" He closed his eyes then, not wanting to see whatever expression Heero might have.

"Look at me," Heero gently commanded.

"Mah eyes burn."

"Because you're crying. Open your eyes," Heero urged him, "Shini."

He sniffed, then wiped at tears. "I'm selfish and he doesn't... he's going to be disgusted by me and don't tell me that you know me better than me... I know what's in Duo's head better than you do."

"That's true," Heero agreed. "So Duo really doesn't know about you? He doesn't suspect? How does he account for the lost time?"

"Uh, well, in the war, he just thought he was insane, which I guess, we kinda are. After the war, I wasn't very active when he was a Preventer doctor. When he's happy, I just kind of ... sleep, but after The Rage, we started taking Novo and we both lost time. He's been so sick the last few decades - I think he just thinks it's the hole in his head."

"I can see how he'd see it that way," Heero agreed. "I know that I have always talked to you as if you're a different person than Duo. It seemed like you wanted it that way. I know I don't know you as well as you know Duo. I haven't lived inside your head, but I have known you both for a very long time. I have known you both when you're manic and sick, depressed, murderous, horny as hell, with the flu, gunshot wounds, when you haven't slept for 48 hours. I knew you as a skinny 15 year old who knew you were going to die. I knew you as a great pilot. I knew you as a shy man who couldn't tell me you were gay for half a decade, even though we'd already had sex in the war. I know you, both of you, and you are the same person. You're not going to be fully functional without him and he isn't going to be without you. If it works for you not to tell him your history, then just rejoin and don't tell him. When the time is right, you will talk to each other. But no matter how that goes, we have time and we need to get energy to save the colony and we need to figure out what happened on The Rage."

"God, Heero. That was a lot of words," Shini teased. "Maybe you are becoming like me."

Heero touched a fingertip to Shini's nose. "I learned from the best. It's going to be six weeks before we can do much more than plan though. So I got us some video games."

"Really?"

"Really. I have nothing whatsoever against digital blood."

Earlier on the day Heero went back in time...

Duo Maxwell stared at his mother, feet hanging over the edge of the bed, violet eyes on fire. "What. Did. You. Do?"

"Don't speak to me that way," she hissed back, her own violet eyes narrow and sharp. "I am your mother."

"I just fucking met you. I don't know you," Duo snarled back. "As your fucking patient, I want to know what you did? God... I can feel it. You played in my head."

"As your doctor, I repaired a wound you had in brain. I'm sorry the computer system was down, but I was afraid that with its location your body functions might begin to fail."

"You had no right," Duo said, shoulders slumping. "You don't know what you've done!" Duo covered his face. "You can't just mess with another person's data. You have to have permission and be impartial! That's why Galen or another AI does it. Galen, show me a scan of my brain."

Galen held up his palm and a small 3D simulation of Duo's neural patterning appeared. It didn't look like a physical brain, but more like a rainbow dandelion puff layered on other puffs of rainbow dandelion. Duo touched it and slowly turned it. "You completely obliterated it."

"You mean the brain tumor that was killing you? Yes, I did. You're welcome," she snapped angrily.

"My god! You are a cocky sonofabitch!"

Teeth on edge, she leaned forward. Her nose wrinkled, violet eyes dancing with anger. "Well, you'd know, wouldn't you? You have children, Dayton Reigh! You're about to get married. Do you think you homosexual boyfriend is going to take care of all these children if you fall over dead?"

Duo straightened up, his hair standing on end. "What the hell does that mean? Homosexual? And my name is DUO MAXWELL. Don't make me tell ya again! Galen! Where's Heero?"

"He is standing next to you, one meter to the left." Galen frowned. "Don't you hear him?"

Terror clawed over denial, sending ache slowly up the back of Duo's head, a black hole into his belly. The hair stood up on his head as he turned to look at where Galen said Heero was. "Heero?"

"He says that without you adding more energy into the system, we would have started having life support malfunctions. Whatever else Dr. Reigh may have done, she saved lives by waking you."

"Heero's always been way more practical than I am," Duo said. "I can't see him or hear him. My data is more corrupt than ever."

Heero's hand brushed over his face, brushing his bangs back and then Heero's lips touched his. When he closed his eyes, it was normal, a sweet safe kiss and all that was right with the world.

Duo kept his eyes closed as he walked out of the tent Mercy was using for a hospital. He kept his hold on Heero's hand. Camelot's internal sun felt warm on his face and the shadows from the pines around his camp ground gave contrast. The hole in his soul spread to the edge of his being, made the warmth of the sun cold and what warmth in him that remained slipped down his face. Sound bubbled up, instinctive and beyond control, sobbing like a wounded creature, he felt Heero's arms wrap around him. The embrace felt so distant and removed, but constant. Other touches joined. Slowly he identified the hands on him, Julia, Jacob, Saphron, Roy, Charlotte...

The raging empty filled in, a little like dawn creeping up over the edge of darkness and he reached out to them, touching, hugging, crying, wiping tears away and he didn't know what people were saying in that moment, but someone said something and whatever it was, it was funny as hell. Heero's arm lay on his shoulder and he knew he was there. It was a little like all the years when he'd thought Heero was alive and everyone else thought he was dead, except now everyone else could see him.

Once they got to the camp fire, he realized how many other people where there. Most of the town had come up to the campsite, calm, but expectant.

Duo ran a hand through his hair, bunching up his bangs, and that hole in his soul was so gone, filled to overflowing with responsibility and caring for his people. A disembodied Galen started whispering energy and colony status stats in his ear and he gave himself over to planning for the colony's survival. Under normal circumstances, he would have just had Galen build him a platform to speak from, but he couldn't waste the energy. "Heero, can I stand on your shoulders for a moment or two?"

"Ee," Heero agreed, boosting Duo up to his shoulders.

"Hey! Everyone!" He yelled and it took a moment to start getting everyone's attention. "Galen, broadcast me, whole colony."

"Interlevels as well?" Galen whispered in his ear.

'We're gonna have ta talk about that. That's real? Shit. Shit,' Duo thought, knowing Galen would hear him. 'Yeah, them too.'

"People of Camelot! The colony is stable. Life support is restored to minimal comfort in all regions. We were attacked and suffered massive energy depletion. We are safe. We suffered no loss of life. Please keep energy usage to a bare minimum. Oh yeah, and I'm gettin married. If anyone suffered any injuries in the attack or the brief low energy period, we have a medical tent set up. Dr. Mercy Reigh will be happy to assist. You'all got any questions?"

Megs raised her hand.

Duo pointed to her.

"Are we expecting aide to arrive? Also, if the Earthsphere isn't going to give aide, are you afraid they'll make this an opportunity to force us to register?" She clenched her jaw, pupils narrow little slits.

"I don't know if we're going to get aide, but we'll be okay. We'll figure something out. Earth ain't showing up here to force us to do shit. We got three gundam pilots on this colony. They remember what that oppression shit got them last time."

Angela raised her hand, tentative.

Duo pointed at her.

"Perhaps L4 can render aide? As the energy levels are stable, we should get the kids back in school," Angela said. "Keeping life normal will help us recover."

"Agreed. The school building is safe. Tomorrow, school resumes."

"Me me!" Julia said, jumping up and down in her body that looked just like Duo's. "I get to go to school now! Saphron said!"

"Saphron doesn't make those choices," Duo said, "Go speak nicely to Ms. Andie. She'll decide if you can go to school."

"Okay!" Julia said.

Duo was duly disturbed by his own face smiling back at him, framed in pink pigtails. It made the hair on the back of his neck do a funny little dance. He mentally shot Andie an email letting her know that Juju was about six mentally and unlikely to get much older, but that due to current physical circumstances homeschooling might not longer be a good option. And on that though, he felt reckless and hungry. "Okay! Let's have a barbeque! I declare it to be summer! We're going to have a fantastic summer! Hot dogs and burgers for everyone!"

Heero responded to his movements and let him down. Oddly serious, Heero pulled him close, holding him tight. "I love you so much, Duo Maxwell. Nothing will ever change that. I love every part, every facet of you."

Duo wanted to pull back, remembered he couldn't see Heero, so he closed his eyes and ran a hand over Heero's face, 'seeing' him in his mind. "I love you too. I'll get this mental shit figured out. There isn't anything we can't do. We just have to keep trying."

"I know," Heero agreed.

Mr. Anderson tapped Duo's shoulder and he turned to get a salute from a young and sharp looking Mr. Anderson. "I'm sorry I got to your house too late to be of much help, Sir."

Duo let go of Heero, gave a salute back, then grasped his friend's shoulder. "You were there on time! There's so much to take care of now. We'll work together."

The current of people wanting to talk carried Duo away, into heartbeat of his people. Galen's food processing was already laying out food, filling the camp ground with the scent of summer, rising the temperature just a little, setting the sky to a darker summer blue.

"Duo," Galen whispered in his ear, "We are being hailed by two ships, the larger is the Corvi de Circo, owner Trowa Barton. The other is the Black Pearl, owner Dayton Reigh. Both are requesting to render assistance."

"Hot damn!" Duo yelled, jumping as he clapped. "Assistance is here, Folk! And the circus!"


	26. Chapter 26

A Wrench to the Heart 26/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing nor Marvel

The colony shook. Duo had never felt an earthquake before and it wasn't like there were tectonic plates to move, but he thought that had to be what one would feel like.

'Duo,' Galen whispered in his mind, 'The Black Pearl is creating a new docking portal at our location. We are also receiving as much energy as the system can handle.' Duo nodded, but wanted to touch Heero, hold his hand, and then realized how far he'd gotten from him.

'Where's Heero,' Duo thought to Galen.

'He is on the Black Pearl, controlling the docking construction,' Galen said.

"OH my god! Heero! What have you done?" Duo screamed, expecting Galen to relay his question.

Kurt leaned closer to Jacob. "He says that a lot."

Jacob shrugged.

Saphron laced her fingers behind her head, elbows pulling close to her temples. "Wull, we might kinda a been a little bit of trouble the last couple of days."

"I see," Kurt said, then smiled down at Roy who had just shown up with a plate of food for him. "Thank you, little brother."

Roy grinned ear-to-ear.

Angry Duo was sending a ripple of tension through the gathered community. A pretty wide berth grew around Duo. The muttering settled to a hushed whisper.

Galen's energy like midnight lightening danced over Duo's braid, over his shoulders, violet eyes glaring. "Heero YUY!"

The docking completed and a portal opened a few feet in front of Duo. A simple door that looked just like the door to Duo's house. The porch and steps formed, windows, as if the front of the house were partially drawing itself, using machines the size of atoms to rebuild while connecting the ship to the colony.

The cloud around Duo built at the same time, little lightening storms of black lightning and violet clouds. "HEERO!"

The space around Duo was much wider down. There are upsides and downsides to people with great power.

Then the door opened and Heero stepped through. His hair was longer and pulled into a ponytail and he wore the same simple clothes that Duo seemed to prefer, jeans and a tee-shirt.

Duo saw the door open and close, but no Heero. Panic ate him inside then like a sinkhole. His hands shook and it felt like his brain was going to slip down his spine like sand through an hourglass. He couldn't understand a world where he had brain damage that prevented him from seeing Heero. One hand reached back to grab his hair, fingers pressed to his scalp, lips parted and chill. A sudden burst of anger drove off the panic and his eyes sought out Mercy. He pointed at her and growled, "This is your fault!"

Which he immediately felt like shit for because she looked like she'd given birth to the fucking anti-christ or the minotaur. There are consequences for acting out of selfishness.

But then Heero's hands cupped his head and that lovely voice, raspy and familiar, home and rightness, "Calm the fuck down, Duo Maxwell."

The electric storm released, floating away as a soft blue mist. Duo's hands dropped to his sides. "What have you done?"

"When your mother was murdered, your personality split in two. Half of you went to the past to kill your mother's murderers. We need his mindfile to repair your mind so you can see me. The time it took to get back gave us time to get a lot of energy to save Camelot and provide stronger defenses. This split between the two of you is dangerous and it needs to be repaired." Heero reached to take Duo's hand and pressed the yellowed teeth into his palm. "I need you to go talk to him. He's afraid you'll reject him."

Duo stared at his palm, at the teeth. A shudder went through him and he wasn't sure his other self, that he didn't really believe in wasn't right. "What are these?"

"They are teeth from the bounty hunters that killed Mercy," Heero said matter-of-factly.

"Great," Duo said, like 'Thanks for the bubonic plague, just what I wanted!' He grabbed Heero's shirt and felt his way back to Heero's hand and shoved the teeth back. "Thanks."

It's like that, when death actually hits you, he expected. That you're running your race, doing what you do, and then bam, and if you're lucky you have a moment of freefall before you before the never-ever-after swallows you. In the battle, in all the battles, he'd never really thought he was going to die, no matter what he said. Telling himself that he was ready to die, willing to die, not afraid to die... that was all just a way to not face the fear of death.

He pushed Heero gently out of the way and walked towards that door. His hand felt connected to Heero's shoulder where his palm had touched even as he walked up the familiar steps that were going to take him about as far from his own as he could even conceptualize. That warmth on his palm was like a promise that he could turn around at any moment, change his mind, pretend he didn't know what he knew.

All the jokes and laughter and light, none of it existed when his hand touched the doorknob. "I run and hide, but I never tell a lie," he whispered. He was not going to lie to himself. He pushed the door and a crack of dusty dark crushed his breath. There were floorboards, no carpet. The light came from an emergency lantern, slightly green and flickery. The door open enough, he saw a slender man crouching, slender pale fingers gently clawing at the water damaged floorboards.

"Hello," Duo said.

"Hello," Shinigami snarled.

Lightheaded, memories of blood and hunger, of rage, endless rage, and Duo was awash in a sea of memories that were his, but not his. When he stopped spinning, he stood on a small platform in the middle of a hurricane, facing himself.. Not like Julia who was wearing his body, but not him in any way, but this was him, with dark violet eyes, hair darker than his, slightly longer canines, and a dark smile like he stood on the other side of death and feared life not death.

"I thought I wanted to come back and be the hero... to save everyone, to have you love me, to have her love me, but I can't," Shinigami snarled, rage and hate turning his blood dark as ink. "I can't be Dayton. I'm not Dayton! I am Death."

And Duo saw himself... his melodrama and his fears. "I love everything you did to keep us alive," Duo said, smiling softly, feeling his fear turn to shadows, and then not even that as he turned up the lights in his mind. "You are my strength and I love you."

Shinigami tilted his head, one eye twitching. "I don't think you understand."

"But I do," Duo promised. "I'm going to make things right, Shini. For you, for Dayton, and for me."

Shinigami tried to back away, but Duo had his arms around him, pulling me close, hugging him gently. "Tell me everything, give me everything," he urged. "I want it all, everything you've thought and done. Give me everything you have, my sweet god of death."

Outside, Quatre finally got through the crowd to Heero, who was standing in that great openness that scary Duo had created, watching the door, holding those teeth in one hand, tears silently sliding down his cheeks. "Is he going to be okay," Quatre asked.

"I don't know," Heero said.

"I was doing a fine job of protecting him," Quatre accused, "And then you had to find your way back to him."

Heero arched an eyebrow, looking at Quatre. "He's not a house plant."

"I will be angry with you if he is harmed any further," Quatre said pleasantly, smiling charmingly. "There are worse things than being Alexander."

Blue eyes narrowed.

"Hello," Mercy said, hands on her hips, braid laying on her shoulder, violet eyes smoldering. "Which of you cockshits is going to tell me what the hell is going on?"

Quatre's jaw clenched. Heero sighed. "It's complicated, Dr. Reigh. I understand you've had a difficult day and technology must be very disorientating."

The door started to dissipate then, little bits of it breaking off and floating away like fireflies.

Heero pressed both hands to his face, dropped to one knee.

Little fireflies filled the campground, completing the lovely summer night.

Mercy reached out cautiously to touch Heero's shoulder, to offer comfort.

"There was too much brain damage," Quatre whispered, seeking some way to understand, to reorder the world. "It started on The Rage."

"It started before that," Mercy said softly. "But look what he did with his life."

Heero groaned, emotion swelling in him.

"Heero," Quatre said, shoving at his shoulder, "look!"

Just as the last of the fireflies came into being, Duo stepped back into the colony, a small child on his hip. The boy had wild brown hair, violet eyes. Duo's strode towards them, a shit eating grin on his face.

Heero bolted to his feet, running forward.

"I love what ya done with yer hair, 'Ro," Duo teased, winking. One eye was Duo violet, the other Shinigami purple. "Ya gonna wear it like that to our wedding?"

Heero threw his arms around Duo and the boy, lifting them off the ground, spinning them around.

People pressed in closer, chattering asking questions. Duo reached for Mercy though, drawing her close and pushing the boy into her arms. He gurgled in two-year-old eloquence. Mercy dropped to the grass, holding the boy up, looking him over, turning him around, running her hands over him, hugging him close.

Heero hadn't let go of Duo. Duo reached out and pulled Quatre close, an arm over his shoulder. "Come on! We're having a barbeque! No more drama today! Food! Who wants a hot dog eating contest?"

And that was good enough for the moment...

OUTTAKES... Shinigami/Dayton's thoughts prior to seeing Duo

Judgement day isn't real.

Not like some god will decide, will pound out a decree.

Camelot.L2 lay dark in space, shielded against detection. The

Camelot is a small colony. It's not the smallest, but it lays in the darkness like an undiscovered dream. Most colonies have a heat signature that glows a warm summer peach against nice green leaves, just begging folk to come have a bit. They also have standing armies and or agreements for protection from the Earthsphere.

It really should be the heliosphere, not the Earthsphere, but, I guess, Earthsphere with a capital E is about the sphere of human influence not like the range of any given object's gravity. Camelot lies in the heliosphere, outside of Earth's reach, but still held by the beautiful yellow sun. When we designed her, we build in safe levels of stealth, practical levels of heat retention, energy recycling.

If we hadn't gone fucking crazy printing super expensive bodies, we'd have been fine for a millenia. Sometimes I have a drug problem, sometimes I have a spending problem, and I'm gonna go with that's proof of humanity.

My thoughts are so mundane. I wanted this fantastic entrance back into Camelot.L2. I wanted to be the glorious hero, but...

So it's like this... Duo was always part of me too. We were born in the same moment. When we broke... he got some shit and I got some shit and just like a damaged brain can like learn to repurpose area and use it for something else... we're both almost whole. Duo's the creative one. He's the one with the grand gestures and rapid fire ideas that all come together like fucking fireworks. I do other things.

So like I can almost do what he does. I can imagine little androids to fetch my mother... to have her dressed like fucking Maid Marion and I'll come swashbuckling in in black, with a pirate hat and a great long black feather... I imagine kneeling and offering her these old yellowed teeth. God. That day was so long ago now. I can't really plan that party... There are just dots missing between the endpoints.

I don't love children.

Not the way he does.

I don't really love, not the way he does. I think Heero understands that and doesn't expect it of me. Duo loves him plenty.

I need Heero, but that's a different thing.


End file.
